


The Chemicals Between Us

by Magdalane



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Finale didn't happen, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2020-03-26 12:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19005499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magdalane/pseuds/Magdalane
Summary: Liz Ortecho has been guarded for a long time.  It's going to take more than some pesky feelings to get her walls down.  Maybe some good old fashioned fun with Max Evans will help more than feelings?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place starting in the hotel in episode 109 Songs About Texas. There was only one hotel room available here but that’s really only a springboard for a development of a different type of relationship for our star crossed couple for this story. Liz is still guarded, and untrustworthy in people’s love in general, and we’re going to play around with that. Will follow cannon events up to a point. It’s mostly just playing around with the ways their relationship could develop that they aren’t going to show on TV.

“One room is fine, Max,” Liz says, looking up at him.

He looks unsure.

“It’s not a big deal. We’re all adults here,” she says, this time rolling her eyes a bit.

He concedes and they follow the clerk to the jalapeno room after checking in for the night.

“Well… this is special,” she sighs, heading off to the bathroom. She debates what to wear, knowing that walking out in her shirt and underwear might be just a bit much.

She decides to just chuck her jean skirt and tights and get under the covers while Max is in the bathroom. He takes his turn and she does just that, trying to get comfortable in the oddly decorated room, with the unsatisfactory blanket.

Max comes out of the bathroom and she is laying facing the window, her back to him, as he slides in similarly dressed. Liz tries to ignore his heat and how much she wants to look at him and curl into him for comfort. It becomes apparent that neither of them are asleep and she eventually turns around out of frustration.

“Are you awake?” she asks, knowing the answer.

“I’m not even close to sleep,” he sighs.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get closer to an answer, Max,” she says. Now she is completely turned towards him as he lies on his back staring at the ceiling. The lines between the old blinds that cover the windows are making patterns on the ceiling from the lights in the parking lot outside.

She desperately wants to touch him; to comfort him; but she has put up the boundaries against her feelings for him for a reason. She hasn’t been dishonest; she’s told him that she is drawn to him, but can’t trust him, and then she found out her gut was correct-- he was indeed hiding something from her, something terrible.

But she had forgiven him for that. It was a month ago now since she had found out the truth about Rosa’s death and told him she never wanted to see him again.

 

“I’m not mad at you about Rosa’s death,” she said suddenly. “I know you did the best you could to figure out how to deal with something terrible. It’s not easy. None of this is, but I’m not angry with you. I guess I understand the best I can, being so close to this. This whole situation has been such a mindfuck,” she laughs, at the absurdity of the situation.

She wants to be with someone that covered up her sister’s death. But only because he didn’t understand or know who really killed her, not really. That’s not a problem you can talk through with a friend. Or even a therapist.

She rolls on her back and decides that maybe she can be halfway truthful, just like she was so many months ago when she told him that she is scared of him in more ways than one. 

“You know, I’ve never really been in love, Max. The idea of love… it’s hard for me to believe in. I’ve mostly just had guys I hook up with. Friends with benefits, that sort of thing,” she pauses, but he says nothing. “Loving Rosa, loving my mom who only hurt us, loving my dad…. Family love is the only type I’ve allowed myself to have and that still hurts-- all the time.”

She turns towards him again, and he finally looks at her, his expression guarded. She feels somewhat guilty for stringing him along somewhat when she told him they could get to know each other, because that was truly in order to get information to figure out the mystery. Her guilt is tempered by the fact that she was right. Still, she cares for him enough to try to at least explain something. His puppy dog eyes and longing are just so obvious, though she tries to ignore it and he tries to hide it.

“It broke my heart when I found out I was right and you were lying to me. It broke my heart because I do care about you. But I can’t hold it against you. Not anymore. You are so simply good. You are the best person I know. Considering what life has given you, even more so.”

He just looked at her with the usual pain and sadness that had enveloped him for months. She knew it wasn’t even entirely to do with her.

“I hid that from you for ten years,” he said. “You have every right to be upset.”

“But I’m not. I was. You know that I was. I shouldn’t have said I never wanted to see you again, even. I don’t think there is a world in which I could ever actually mean that,” she said. She reached out, gently, taking his hand and feeling how warm it was.

“I want to thank you, again, for everything you are doing for Isobel. It doesn’t even make sense. No one would do that,” he said.  
“Let’s just let it all go, Max. All of it-- as much as we can. I still believe you are good. I’m ready to move past the heartbreak and just accept the truth,” she said, tears shining in her eyes but not falling.

He pulled her to her then, unexpectedly, enveloping her, holding her.

“You are so much warmer than me, oh my God!” she giggled, setting a completely different tone to the conversation. “How much does this thin ass blanket suck?”

He laughed and didn’t let go. “I’ll keep you warm. I’m never really that cold.”

“Must be nice,” she griped They stayed that way for a few minutes but Max couldn’t help not bringing something up. He never pried-- he had imposed upon this woman enough. But she seemed open tonight, and he was desperately curious.

“How uh… how can you have a fiance and never have been in love?” he asked casually.

“Oh God. How many people know about that?” she said. She let out a huff of annoyance.

“Fine, fine, don’t tell me,” he said lightly, ignoring the consistent twinge in his chest that the thought of her with someone else inevitably brought up. He reminded himself daily that it was not his place to care, and his love was unreciprocated.

“I don’t think he loved me either, if that makes it sound any better,” she offered. He waited, saying nothing, backing up a bit to look at her expectantly.

She huffed again and laughed.

“How can someone be so nosy without saying anything?” she asked and looked up at him.

“I do believe you are the one that told me you prefer friends with benefits to being in love, as if that is something I wanted to know,” he teased her.

She made a face but continued.

“So he was just a guy at my last research lab. He asked me out-- I told him I didn’t do serious dating. We slept together a few times, and then he said it was time for him to settle down. Out of college, working, and he felt like I was the type of girl he could picture marrying. I said okay because… I guess I thought it made sense too. We were compatible. The sex was good. We had similar jobs, things to talk about,” she said.

“But when my grant was pulled, staying with him held no draw. It was probably cold of me to leave so abruptly, and I’m sure it hurt his feelings, but he wasn’t that invested either,” she insisted.

“You assume he wasn’t,” Max interjected.

“Well, not everyone is a hopeless romantic like you, Max,” she said. “We weren’t like what you are picturing when you ask someone to marry them…. And they will be a very, very lucky person. But surely you’ve had friends you just are compatible with, sexually or otherwise?” she prodded. Two can play at this game.

He cringed internally and turned back to the ceiling.

“I don’t kiss and tell,” he said lightly.

“That’s a yes!” Liz giggled.

“I…..I’ve never been engaged or in love with someone I’ve dated, but I’ve had plenty of…. experience,” he conceded.

She took advantage of the light moment and moved closer again, resting her head on his shoulder.

He ignored the familiar pain in his chest, for the millionth time, instead saying, “Who knew Liz Ortecho was the friends with benefits type, eh? Who knew?”

She laughed. She hadn’t felt this relaxed in months. She wanted to kiss him. But this finally felt nice. Like a friendship she could maintain. And she had led him on enough. She truly wondered if she was even capable of the type of love he felt he had.

“Max, my dear, you think you know me but it’s been ten years. I’m so far from perfect it’s scary to think that you think you still know me so well. I don’t even know how to process how you think you feel about me,” she said quietly, and drifted off to sleep.

He didn’t sleep for a long while, wondering how on she could be so wrong about herself. Maybe he came on a bit strong, but he was finally realizing that the trauma of Rosa’s death and the way Liz had just left had kept him back. He hadn’t dealt with it, not really. After all this time. And he did love her for her, whether or not she could feel it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liz is not the girl next door and decides to ask for what she wants. I'm not going to exhaust the story with every single conversation because up to now we are basically canon and have all watched the series season 1, I'm assuming. MATURE CHAPTER :D

The morning came too quickly.

She woke up, still near Max, but on her side, her back to him. His arm was heavy, draped across her waist. It felt so incredibly nice, but her walls were firmly back up. In this stolen moment, she revelled in the feel of him, relaxing back to him, trying not to wake him.

Her hips desperately wanted to back into his and curl into his body. She imagined for a second that she was waking up to the comfort and safety of a partner, a lover...a normal boyfriend, even. She just didn’t believe it was possible; it was far too complicated.

 _Snap out of it, Liz,_ she scolded herself. _He’s in love with you. He’s not down for a quick fuck._

But that was part of where her mind was, so she decided to focus on that. He was a beautiful person; alien or otherwise. She was simply physically attracted.

Thinking about what a quick fuck with Max Evans could be like she squeezed her legs together, causing her hips to move back a fraction. She heard him startle and take in a quick breath.

She stilled, mortified. Hoping that he would think she was still asleep.

But he was groggy, and not realizing, of course, what she was thinking about.

“Good Morning,” he muttered, his hand gripping her hip, as he begun to try to surreptitiously pull away.

“How, uh, how long have you been awake?” she asked.

“Long enough that I was trying not to wake you up,” he said simply.

“Oh. So was I,” she said. She was thoroughly embarrassed now but she knew at least some of it was in her head. She tried to relax, she really did. But the pent up sexual tension and stress was affecting her judgment, and she chose to own her mortification.

She turned toward him, and he propped his head up on his hand with his elbow bent.

“You know what we were talking about last night?” she asked, innocently.

“We talked about a lot of things,” he said, looking down at her messy hair and beautiful face.

She took a deep breath.

“Do you wanna fuck?” she asked, heart pounding. Why was she so nervous? She’d asked men this before. _You know why, but keep on lying to yourself, Liz,_ she thought. She willed her inner monologue to shut up and go with this plan.

Max sucked in a breath. Anything else could have come out of her mouth and he’d have been less surprised.

“What?” he asked, incredulous.

She began to ramble. “It’s just a question. We’re friends now? We trust each other? Just say yes or no. It’s just a question, just say what you want,” she said, trying to look casual and as if she wouldn’t be crushed if he wasn’t willing to explore their relationship this way.

He looked at her intently. He knew this was a very, very bad idea. He loved her and she wanted to… _fuck._  Not have their first kiss. Not make love. Not go on a date. She wants to fuck. _For the love of all that is holy, don’t ask me this_ , he thought. _Because I’m not strong enough to say no_.

He cupped her face, looking down at her. He steeled his resolve to show her a side of himself he didn’t think he’d ever show her. Other women, yes, but not her. Maybe not even if they were together the way he wanted to be.

The gentleness of his hand contrasted sharply with the tone of his words.

“Do you, Liz Ortecho, think there is any man in Roswell that doesn’t want to fuck you?” he asked.

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. She hadn’t been expecting that response, even though she didn’t know what to expect anyway. She did however, feel a rush of heat between her legs at his dirty words and intense stare.

“Do you really want to do this, Liz?” he asked, genuinely, searching her face for her intentions.

“Yes. You are the sexiest man I’ve ever thought about it with, Max. You can’t expect me to sleep next to you all night and not think about it,” she replied. She may as well respond in kind.

“Then turn back around,” he ordered.

Whatever she thought he’d be like in bed, it wasn’t this. But she was so turned on it hurt. She thought maybe they’d kiss. Maybe it would be gentle, but nice. That was clearly not what Max had in mind.

She didn’t hide her reaction or surprise to his words, but did exactly what he said. Now with her back to him again, he pressed himself against her exactly like she had fantasizing about, and he felt amazing. She ground her hips back the way she had wanted to when she woke up.

He began breathing faster behind her, rolling his hips into her. He brought his hands down to her waist and pulled her underwear down, stopping around her knees. His hand went between her legs, feeling that she was more than ready.

“Geez Liz, you don’t waste any time,” he muttered.

He pulled his boxer briefs down, clearly ready to slide in and she yelled, “Wait!”

He groaned. “Yeah?”

“Sorry. Uh, I’m on the pill. And I’m clean. I don’t usually do this without… being safe,” she said.

He sighed. “Me too. Clean that is. I don’t think I can even get something.”

“Then by all means, Cowboy,” she sighed and pushed back against him, and he was inside her a second later.

He felt just right, and thrust fast enough to get her excited but not too slowly. Rhythmically. _Does this man do anything that isn’t thought out and careful_ , she laughed internally.  Even an unplanned… whatever this is?

As his rhythm intensified, his hand wandered up to her breast and she cupped her own hand over his, showing her how hard she liked to be gripped. She reached her hand up then, to pull his face down to her and kiss him, but as she tried to turn her head up he quickly grabbed her throat, not hurting her but not soft, keeping her head in place. She tested it out, trying to turn to look at him, but he held firm. She felt his face behind hers, and he gently kissed her behind the ear. She felt his breath between each kiss.

None of it made sense, but it was all incredibly, deliciously hot.

His strong strokes into her from behind, which were gaining speed. His firm hand on her chest and throat, holding her in place-- all juxtaposed with his gentle, fluttery kisses and breath against her neck. _Who are you, Max Evans_ , she wondered.

Little did he know this was one of her favorite positions and one that she could get really close to orgasm without much extra stimulation. She pushed and pushed back against his dick, trying desperately to hit the right spot.

“Max, ugh, Max please, I need….” she trailed off. She began moving her hand down to touch herself, but he quickly caught it. He pushed his other arm underneath her, grabbing her hand and holding her, while his free hand then moved down to her clit. She was so turned on by his commanding presence and ability to read her that she knew it wouldn’t take much more.

He touched her, decidedly not gently, and she came while he rubbed her in clit circles, never stopping thrusting from behind. He came a minute later, gasping into her ear, as her head was now finally where she had wanted it to be since his other arm pulled her to him. She looked up at him, almost able to kiss him had she tried again, but instead she closed her eyes and basked in the feeling of his warmth and her orgasm.

He stayed still for a minute, letting his breath return to normal. He kissed her lightly on the side of the head and she finally grabbed his face and made him look her in the eyes. But there was too much emotion there and he was clearly trying hard to keep it hidden.

“Lots of… experience, huh?” she smirked up at him, choosing to keep it as light as it should be.

He didn’t say anything but instead put his face into the crook of her shoulder, buried in her long, long hair. Looking at her eyes was too much. Especially after how he had chosen to play this.

“Can you come again?” he asked softly in her ear.

“Everything you say to me is a surprise,” she blurted out. “But to answer your question, yes. Especially when it’s like this.” She would have blushed if she hadn’t just fucked him with such abandon. This whole idea was starting to feel very strange, and she was the one that instigated it.

He moved, letting her roll fully on her back and reached down to circle her clit again. He kept his head buried in her neck, only peaking up when he expected her eyes would be closed. He watched her come in all her glory, having imagined what she would look like many times before-- not that he would voice that to her even now. It was everything he thought it would be, and she was as beautiful to him as ever.

But it was over quickly, and that was for the best. He abruptly rolled over and sat on the side of the bed, her back to him, and told her he’d jump in the shower quickly and meet her back here after he went to ask the healer one more question.

She was confused, but not unhappy. The sex had been more than she could have imagined. Max clearly did know his way around a person’s body and she had never been shy about sex anyway. What was the point of that? Sex was sex and didn’t need to be tangled up in feelings.

She felt a twinge of guilt at that; she knew there were feelings on his side and had approached him anyway. She pushed the guilt away by deciding that she had feelings too but that this was the best way. Being together; really being together would be far too complicated, and she still wasn’t convinced his feelings could be as strong as he thought. Too much time had passed and too many things had happened. He needed love and companionship and understanding. Maybe a solid friendship outside of his siblings. She would be happy to give him that and the rest was just icing on the cake.

She decided Max Evans was undeniably good in bed and marched outside to wait for him for the drive home.

He pulled up and she got in, but things felt odd. He barely looked at her. They barely spoke on the entire drive.

When he pulled off to visit Isabel, he finally relayed the story of the old woman that lived on the reservation. He was dealing with so much, Liz thought, and she pulled him to her and held him there, wishing she could fix it all. Fix Isabel and find all of his answers.

He pulled away, told her he’d take her home, and began walking to the car.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reconnecting after the shooting at the hospital isn't as easy as Liz would have hoped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set during Episode 110, I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.

“Well, anything can happen, but she’s an alien again,” Liz states matter of factly.

“Thanks, Liz. For everything,” Max says, walking up to her while Isabel sits on the couch.

 _At least he’s looking at me again_ , Liz thinks.

Outside, before she leaves, Max tells her she doesn’t have to go. But she does. And he should know why she creates this distance.

“I said I’m not mad at you, but I did just give the person that killed my sister her powers back. I need to get back to humans; to my own work,” she says, and turns around quickly, opening her car door.

She glances over her shoulder and he’s looking down. “Keep me posted on her progress though. I’m going to go to the hospital and ignore the protesters.”

  
____________________________________________________________________________

 

Later, at the hospital Isabel is arguing with Liz about giving her more antidote to help with her memories when an active shooter begins firing, and Noah is shot. She would take the time to be irritated at Isabel saying that she could just influence her if she wanted if tragedy wasn’t always ready to strike in this damn town.

Max finds them and guides them out of the hospital before rushing back in, leaving them in the crowd of confused people and rescue workers.

“He always has to be the hero!” Liz shouts to Cam.

“No, that’s actually new,” she replies, studying Liz.

Liz doesn’t have time to wonder what that means because she is frantic with worry. Partially about her lab, but mostly about Max.

  
____________________________________________________________________________

 

Max finds her in her destroyed lab after apprehending the confusing shooter. He refuses to believe that it was him she is terrified for, like Cam had told him a few minutes before. At least not as more than a friend. With benefits? He’s beginning to hate the term. But he doesn’t indulge in bitterness long. It serves no purpose and none of her feelings are exactly surprising, he reminds himself. Again.

She pulls him into her arms, but abruptly pulls back and hits his chest with both hands.

“Why Max, why? Why would you run in--- with no backup, no vest? Nothing? I don’t know anything about police work but surely that wasn’t what you were supposed to do?” Liz asks. She is fighting tears.

“I’ve already heard from my chief and my partner, okay Liz? I caught him, and I’m fine. I can’t see why it matters so much,” he says back, not adding “to you” at the end of it.

They stare at each other and both seem to decide the argument is ridiculous, instead discussing the lab and the shooter and how none of it seems to add up.

“I think maybe your sister is innocent of all of this,” she concludes. With their minds on a fourth alien and whether or not she or he is capable of causing all of this heartbreak second hand, they forget about their personal issues.

____________________________________________________________________________

 

That night, Max is trying to forget the day when there is a knock on the door. He sighs. Can this all just stop for a minute? He’s amazed they aren’t all in therapy. Do anti-anxiety medications even work on aliens? He laughs at himself. He just might be on the verge of an alien mental breakdown. He hauls himself up. No one drives all the way out here without knowing it’s his house.

He opens the door and there she stands, take out bag in her hands.

“Hey Liz. Uh, what’s up? What did you drive all the way out here for?” he asks. She’s the only person he wants to see, and the last person he wants to see.

“I just thought you might need some food. It hasn’t exactly been an easy week?” she says, but it sounds like a question. She looks up at him hopefully.

“Thanks. Come in,” he resigns. He opens the door wider for her and she walks into the main room.

“Well, I thought that chasing a murderous alien might not give you time to buy groceries, and judging by the bag of chips it looks like you were eating for dinner, I was right,” she says cheerily.

He heads off to the kitchen but she tells him to sit down while she gets glasses of water to go with the food she brought from the diner.

They chat while they eat, sitting side by side on his couch, and try to keep it light. They seem to both want to avoid everything they always talk about.

“Max… do you do anything to take care of yourself? You look so tired,” she says.

He laughs shortly and leans forward.

“What exactly can I do about that, Liz?” he asks, tilting his head to the side, his elbows on his knees.

“I have exactly one idea,” she replies. She smirks.

“Liz… I thought that was a one time, road trip type of thing,” he replies.  He's not really sure what he thought truthfully, but the day was too draining for him to think about this, with her, right now.

“Do you want it to be?” she asks.

“There are a lot of things I want, Liz. Since when does that matter in life?” he asks simply. He cleans up his food trash and walks to the kitchen.

Liz leans back into the couch and looks toward the ceiling. She had thought coming here to relax together was the right thing.

He walks back in and cleans up her trash too, not saying anything more.

“I’m a mess, Max. And now I feel like I’ve pushed all my mess on to you. I’m sorry. I…. I won’t bring it up again. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed being with you,” she calls in to the kitchen. She can see that he is done with his chore, but is facing the sink, not looking at her.

“I’m glad you ate. Text me anytime you need food. You know I don’t mind. There is too much going on to not take care of yourself,” she tells him, but still to no response. If he needs quiet, she won’t interfere.

She heads to the door. She walks slowly, hoping she hears his footsteps but she doesn’t. She sighs, and leaves, closing the front door behind her.

She wants to turn around, and head back inside and kiss him, properly. She wishes, for a moment, she had just kissed him in her destroyed lab, instead of hitting him and yelling at him. Couldn’t he see that she was terrified of something happening to him? Why did it have to be so intense with him? Couldn’t they just care about each other and not call it something? Either one of them could die tomorrow the way things were going and he wants what? A prom date? An engagement?

She leans against the door debating what to do and he walks up to it inside, slowly, quietly, resting his forehead helplessly against it. He forbids himself from opening it and pulling her in before she drives away and fucking her from behind against the back of the couch. That’s what she really wants anyway, right? She doesn’t do love but he doesn’t know how not to. Well, at least with her. It would be so easy, he thinks. She would let him do whatever he wants. He senses at least that much from her. But why? Why is that enough to make her happy?

He knows she hasn’t left yet, and he leans his head there for several minutes, warring with himself but sticking to his guns. It would hurt too much. She steadies herself outside his door, swallows and heads to her car after what feels like an hour. Why does the sting of rejection feel like this, she wonders. All she proposed was sex. She pulls out her phone as she drives, that being the least reckless thing she was about to do, as she pulls up Kyle’s number.

He answers on the second ring.

“Hey. You remember that adulting we did together a few months back? It was kind of a shit day. What do you say?” she asks.

He seems mildly surprised, and tells her to feel free to come over.

At least with him it wouldn’t be so messy. She puts on some armor and decides she has worried too much about the Max situation.  

Back at his house, Max stares at a _very nice_ picture he took of Cam one night on his phone-- with permission of course. He can’t call her-- not anymore. But he can indulge himself in other ways. Ways that don’t hurt anyone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during Episode 111 - Canon Divergence ahead! This episode was full of rich dialogue between Max and Michael, and even the conversations between Max and Liz and Liz and Isabel at the gala go along with the place I have taken these characters. For example, Liz telling Max to follow her if she runs again-- in real life, that’s unfair to put on someone else. You need to deal with your desire to run from commitment. But perfect characters would never be compelling or realistic. That is the part of her character I’m playing up. So assume all of that is the same, for about half the episode. I’ll try not to make it choppy, but I’m not going to rewrite every scene that we have all watched.
> 
> After the midpoint or so of this episode, is sharp canon divergence because I want to take the story somewhere different than the finale and next season will have to. It’s not about what happened to Max; for me what happened with Rosa is a hard pass! I hope her character isn’t ruined for me next season. So much meaning to a tragic, cut short life and I would have kept her story as the story that it is-- not something that could change.

Most everyone involved in the hunt for the fourth alien is at the diner, after hours; Isabel, Max, Michael, Alex, Kyle, Liz and Noah; trying to figure out how the fourth alien seems to know everything they know-- about the serum, maybe even about their individual strengths and weaknesses.

“We have one week before the next Ranchero night, and I need to make more serum,” Liz says.

Michael looks around the room wondering how they got to the point where the people who know about them outnumber the siblings themselves, especially in such a short period of time. His suspicious nature makes it hard to trust anyone.

“So just pretend aliens don’t exist and we live in a boring, quiet town where nothing ever happens,” Noah says.

Nothing ever happening seems quite far from the truth to Liz, but the group breaks up, leaving just her and Max.

Max cautiously looks Liz’s way. 

“So, this Gala tonight, would you be my date? As friends, of course,” he says, his tone teasing, to mask his hopefulness.

“Another man has already requested my company,” she replies simply. 

The disappointment settles on his face and she gives him a look waiting for him to catch up.

“Right. Your dad,” he says. You continue to play it oh so cool, Evans, he thinks.

“I promised him we would go together. But I’ll see you there,” she smiles up at him. “And I’ll want a dance.”

____________________________________________________________________________

Later that evening at the Gala, Liz tells Isabel she thinks Max is standing her up.

“No, that’s something you would do,” Isabel says coolly. She never spares a kind tone for Liz, despite everything. “That’s the thing, you never would have left if you didn’t want to. I can’t make you do something you wouldn’t already do.”

“Maybe I was always scared of his affection. Fine, you are correct. Let’s just find him.” Liz concedes. Isabel is the last person she would ever care to impress or explain herself to.

“They aren’t answering their phones,” Isabel says.

“I know a dead zone. I know where they could be,” Liz says, and dashes off to find them. After rescuing them from the underground shelter, they return to the Gala and try to put together the pieces of who the fourth alien is, horrified to realize it might have been Noah all along. 

Max waits while Isabel delves into Noah’s mind, and Liz runs back to the diner to test the blood sample she has from Noah’s shooting.

“It’s Noah! Noah is the fourth alien,” she shouts into the phone with Max on the other line. When Max protests out of disbelief, she tells him she is looking at a sample of Noah’s blood to convince him.

Max follows Isabel outside, but she is under the influence of Noah. Noah punches him with surprising strength, using Max’s conflicted feelings at the fact that it is Isabel’s body to his advantage. Noah uses Isabel to hit him and knee him repeatedly, and soon Max is unconscious on the ground.

She grabs his gun from him and runs.

_______________________________________________

Noah waits, patiently, in his car. Isabel will come to him. And she does. He gets out of the car to take the gun from her-- something to have just in case-- and decides on his next move. Isabel sits on the curb, unmoving.

“You are too predictable,” he says, walking around the front of his car, where Liz is crouched on the sidewalk. He had seen her trying to creep up to the car in his rear view mirrors, while he sat there controlling Isabel. As if she was conspicuous in a bright white dress and red lip. 

He imagined she’d be running for her little serum to bring back to him, anyway. If Max knew it was him, he had to reason to believe that she did as well, and then he saw her trying to sneak up on him.

“You aren’t going to get away with anything else, Noah. We don’t let you,” she spits, standing up.

Noah reaches out his hand and holds Liz there, unable to move. He looks bored, as if it takes no effort at all. He walks closer and takes her arm, caressing her skin deceptively gently, moving down and removing the syringe with the serum from her hand and pocketing it.

“Let’s take a little trip together, shall we?” he says, and leads her by the arm, powerless, to his car.

He drives to yet another cave in the desert, one Liz hadn’t been to before. He pulls her out of the car, and she raises her other arm to try to push him away and run, but he just catches her in his unseeable, telekinetic hold again.

“I’ll catch you every time,” he says, pulling her more roughly by the arm inside the cave.

Inside he has candles, pictures, and his pod hidden under a blanket. It’s a bizarre shrine to Rosa, among other things.

“What are you doing, Noah?” she asks as she takes in the strange surroundings. “It doesn’t make sense to me. You could have just been a family with them-- a real one.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about,” he said, sitting down on the cave’s floor to one side. “Sit down, and don’t move.” He moves his suit jacket aside and touches the gun in his waistband to remind her he more than one way of making her comply.

Liz sits down as well as she can in her long dress and heels. She decides to kick them off nonchalantly, but leaves them close enough to reach.

“So tell me, then. I imagine your plan is to kill me anyway. Just like you killed Rosa,” she snaps.

“You are nothing like Rosa!” Noah yells. He gets up then, walking towards her and sitting far too close, right next to her. He is so close he could whisper in her ear.

“But you do look like her,” he says, much softer. “You didn’t know her. You didn’t love her. She couldn’t tell you the truth about her real father. You never did anything for her.”

“What truth?” Liz asks. “You aren’t making any sense! And you didn’t love her! You were entitled to her! There’s a fucking difference!”

Liz’s heart is racing and she knows she is now giving into panic and that it will be to her detriment. She takes a deep breath. She remembers that the small plastic bag of yellow pollen is nestled under her the bodice of her dress, in just about the only place she could hide something in an evening gown.

Noah is just looking at her, a smug expression on his face. Liz levels a neutral look at him.

“I still say you may as well tell me the truth. Because I really don’t get it,” Liz says, hoping that keeping him talking gives her a chance to survive and find out some answers.

“Fine, princess. We were refugees and a stowaway on board caused our ship to crash. We were fleeing war, but when we landed the humans killed most of us. I was not among the lucky ones like the three you care so much about, traveling in well made pod. I escaped, I dragged my pod here, and tried to survive. But my body was already tearing down to begin with. The pod kept me alive but not well; my mind awake and my body not able to heal itself. Living in stasis. Finally… after decades, I invaded Isabel’s mind and saw a small measure of freedom. Killing gave my body the strength to heal,” he said.

“What, like a… a parasite? I don’t understand. Max isn’t like that,” she said.

“Max isn’t a lot of things,” he scoffs. “He has no idea the power he possesses and he’s too scared to use it. None of them know who they are.”

“Well, who are they?” she persists. “And why couldn’t you have contacted them some way, found some other way to survive?”

Noah scoffs again. “That simply wasn’t going to work for me.”

Silence ensues. Liz doesn’t know where to go from here, and Noah isn’t offering any more information. She mulls over everything he just told her.

“They don’t know who they are, and a stowaway crashed the ship. You were already broken, or sick, or whatever can happen to you. Your body was already weak, you said. You were the stowaway, weren’t you? Who are you, really, Noah? Who are you that you wouldn’t want to live in peace with them? Tell them the truth that they were too young to remember?” she prods.

“Enough!” Noah yells. 

“Fine. So now, what’s your grand plan, huh? Kill me for fun? Just to make Max mad? Kill them all?” she asks.

“I can’t kill them,” he replies. “I need them. And you talk too much.”

“But what you do need them for?” she asks, again. She’s tamping down her frustration. “You just like to play with people like yourself?”

“The alighting,” Noah says, cryptically. He offers no other explanation, but leans forward again, his face close to hers. It sends chills throughout her body, someone being this close without permission.

“I can’t kill them. But I can kill you. I can do other things to you. Or…. I could keep you. As my hostage. I need them alive until they come back for us, so I’ll have you here,” he muses. “Otherwise, I’ll just be running from them now that they know who I am, or I’d have to kill them because they won’t let me be the way I am. And I won’t run anymore, ever again.”

He seems to be settling on his plan. “Max will kill me if he thinks I am going to hurt anyone he loves. But not if I hold the key to your safety.”

He looks at his pod and the blanket falls off. It sits empty, like the others she had seen, and doesn’t really look any different.

Realization dawns on her, and she screams while backing up, desperately trying to make distance between them “No, no I won’t.”

“You will,” he says. “And you need to be weak first.”

He puts his hand on the left side of her chest and she tries to crawl backwards, but she hits the wall of the cave. She screams as his hand begins to glow and a fiery feeling begins to radiate out from where he touches her. She has no time left to stall now. It takes all of her effort with the pain blooming in her body, but she reaches up and pulls something out of her dress, clearly catching him by surprise. He had thought she was reaching futilely towards his hand.  
She pinches the small plastic bag of powder and slams it in his face, thankful that it pops open when she grips the top between her fingers.

He yells, and she picks up her heel, bashing him in side of the head. Once, twice. She gets a hold of herself, grabs the gun and runs, but she knows he won’t be far behind.  
____________________________________________________________________________

Max wakes up from when Isabel knocked him out under the influence of Noah’s mind control. Cam is with him, and it’s only been minutes. She helps him sit up and tells him Isabel ran just as she was coming outside.

“Noah was controlling her,” he says. “Obviously.”

He starts to get up and sways a bit. 

“Take it easy, Max, you just got knocked out,” Cam says.

“I’m fine. Alien recovery time,” he says. “We have to find Noah now, before he does something worse.”

They take off in the direction Isabel ran and find her sitting on the curb, confused.

“Max, what’s going on? I just woke up here,” she says.

“We have to find Noah. And we need to take account of everyone else. I thought he would have taken you with him,” he says.

He looks at his phone and sees there is a text from Liz from 15 minutes ago and reads it outloud.

Have the serum. Coming to find you. 

He looks towards the direction of the diner, and back the way they came. He calls her phone and it rings and rings.

“Liz isn’t picking up. She would have come through this way to find us,” he says. 

“This is where we were parked, Max. Noah’s car was parking here in the street,” Isabel supplies. 

“And he’s gone. Maybe Liz is still at the diner? Maybe she’s inside at the Gala,” Cam says, halfheartedly.

“Where could he go, Isabel?” Max demands. “We need to find him. We need to find Liz.”

“I don’t know! I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure it out. I don’t even know him anymore,” she says, disheartened. “What we need is that serum so I can talk to him without his powers; so I can figure this out!”

“A safe house of some kind. Often a serial killer has something like that,” Cam muses.

“His pod. Where we were camping, as kids, Isabel. It has to be near there. It’s the best lead we have,” Max says. 

“You check there, Max. Isabel, go home-- look through your documents, your official things. Maybe he has some other house or something. Call us if you think of something. I’ve got to go back to the Gala and try to look like things are normal and keep an eye out for anything else he can do,” Cam states, thinking like a detective.

“Ok. Tell Michael where I’m going and to find me. I need him. And look after Maria too,” Max says, and everyone runs off in different directions.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are no longer set during different episodes since everything is AU from here on out. The “actual” crash sites near Roswell are on privately owned ranch lands and desert between 30 minutes to more than an hour away from Roswell. A few have popped up in recent ‘memories’, as in the last two decades. So we are going to assume the various characters’ pods are between private land and camping sites, and that the characters have some idea of where to go from knowing the area.

Liz runs, barefoot, through the desert. She has no idea which direction to go, and looking back, wonders if she should have spent time trying to find Noah’s keys instead of grabbing the gun. But she didn’t know how long the powder would delay him for, and no way to contact anyone.

She runs in the direction she thinks the road is. At least it is mostly flat out here, and she is reasonably sure of where she is going. Being lost in the desert somewhere near camping grounds, and between two main highways, is far less terrifying than hanging out with Noah.

She sees headlights up ahead, quickly cutting across the desert. She is too far to one direction for the car to see her, but she crouches down and squints in the moonlight to see who it might be, and it looks like Max’s truck from several hundred feet away. Unsure of what to do, she looks back, and it is getting harder to see the cave she was running from. She hears Noah scream her name, and decides to hide behind a scrubby plant. She watches the direction she came from, and sees that the truck is still speeding that way. It stops near the cave, and a figure that looks like Max gets out.

She can see them both now as she cautiously creeps back towards where she came from, using the terrain to hide.

“Noah, where is she?” Max demands, as he runs towards where Noah had emerged from the direction of the cave.

“You’ll be happy to hear she ran,” Noah says, approaching him. He has only a small trickle of blood running down the side of his face from the heel of Liz’s shoe.

“What did you do to her?” Max yells. 

“She’s not yours, you know, Maximo,” Noah replies. “Besides, you are so much more than this tiny, ridiculous planet. You are pathetic, making a life in this stupid town. Pining after a human that doesn’t want you.”

“Then what are you doing, Noah? What’s so different, aside from using people and killing them?” Max asks.

“I am waiting. Waiting until they come for us. But I don’t want to be something I’m not. I don’t want to be human,” Noah answers. Max sets his jaw at that.

Max is done with the stalling, and looks towards the cave.

“I had planned to put her in my pod for safe keeping, but I couldn’t decide-- kill her just to annoy you, or keep her,” Noah says.

Max screams in anger, and launches himself towards Noah. Noah easily pushes him back without touching him.

“See how much stronger I am than you, Max?” Noah says, approaching where Max lays on his back on the ground. “It’s because I don’t deny the truth of who I am. Your strength scares you, and you run from it, to your own detriment.”

Max begins to get up, but Noah raises his hand and Max stops, considering.

Another car approaches, and both men look as Michael parks his car and gets out, assessing the situation. He sees Noah’s outstretched hand and Max’s position halfway between sitting and standing on the ground. But what he wants is answers.

“So glad you could join us, Michael,” Noah says. 

Michael approaches Noah.

“The game is up, Noah. Tell us where we came from!” Michael yells. “All this time, you could have simply told us! All this time, you hid who you were!”

Liz watches the scene unfold, warring with herself on what to do. She has gotten closer and closer to where she originally ran from, despite her desire to run and never come back, because she knows she is the only one that knows the serum is in Noah’s jacket pocket.

“Michael, they’ll come back for us. That’s why I stayed near you all,” Noah says.

“Who? Who will come back for us? It’s been seventy years!” Michael asks.

“So many questions out of all of you tonight,” Noah says. “You all are never satisfied. You should be happy I’m one of you.”

Max is on his feet again. 

“You’ll never be one of us,” Max says. He turns towards Michael. “Michael, we have to stop him. We can do it together.”

“What we need is for Noah to tell us everything he knows!” Michael says.

Max pulls out a gun he brought with him and points it at Noah, planning to kill him if Michael can hold Noah still.

“Hold him, Michael!” Max demands.

Noah raises his hand to throw Max again, but Michael catches him in his own telekinetic hold this time.

“Don’t kill him! We need him,” Michael pleads with Max, who can’t see past his worry for Liz or his rage for Isabel and Rosa.

“We need him dead! It’s what he deserves,” Max says.

Michael begins to lose his hold, because Noah is pushing back. Noah shakes in his effort to get free.

Liz takes her chance, running as fast as she can from where she had been hiding as she crept steadily closer. Noah’s back is to her, and she collides with him reaching desperately for the serum in his pocket. He hits the ground hard, with her on top of him, and she pulls the needle out, ready to stab Noah in the neck. But he is faster than her-- he’s always faster than everyone-- and spins around pinning her to the ground instead.

Michael lost his hold on Noah trying to process Liz’s unexpected appearance.

“Let go of her, Noah!” Max shouts, his gun still aimed high.

“Stop! Don’t shoot him! I have the serum,” she tells him, struggling to get free, pushing against Noah.

Michael pushes Noah off of her and he hits the ground on his back nearby.

Max approaches him, furious and ready to kill him.

“Max no! You don’t get to decide this,” Michael says.

Max turns his body and points the gun at Michael. “I won’t let you save him, Michael.”

Liz crawls over to Noah while the brothers argue, and quickly injects him with the serum before he recovers from the force of being thrown back. She rolls back onto her back, exhausted. 

“I’ll get you back, Liz,” Noah says quietly. 

“Sure you will Noah. Or maybe you’ll get to see what it’s like to be powerless.”

She gets up and steps to Max, touching his shoulder. She wants to ask him if he’s lost his mind, pointing a gun at his brother. 

But instead, she says quietly, “I’m okay, Max. Isabel is okay. Let’s think this through.” She looks up at him, searching his face.

“He needs to pay for what he’s done,” he says to her, looking at her but his gun still held high.

“Max…. please. He can’t hurt us at the moment. I injected him. I want him to pay for his crimes, Max, but not like this,” she says.

Max and Michael both turn quickly to look at Noah, not realizing what Liz had done while they yelled at each other.

“We need to take him to the pods and hold him there. We can do it together,” Michael says. “I’m not letting the serum kill him until we are ready.”

“Or I could just kill him now,” Max grinds out.

The brothers look at each other, at a standoff. 

“Fine. I’ll call Isabel and tell her to meet us there,” Max says. They each grab an arm to pull Noah up and lead him to Michael’s car, securing his hands with cuffs Max had and strapping him in. After Michael pulls off, Max turns to Liz.

He really looks at her for the first time since she ran up to Noah. Her dress is ruined and she’s covered in dirt.

“What were you thinking, attacking an alien?” he asks, but without any real force behind it, and pulls her into a hug.

“Well you idiots were just going to sit there fighting while he ran away or incapacitated you, so someone had to do something,” she says into his shoulder.

After a long moment, they pull apart. 

“Are you hurt?” he asks. Concern is permanently etched into his features, she thinks.

“I’m fine,” she says. Her feet hurt from running in the desert, and her chest slightly burns from Noah’s touch, but she doesn’t say any of that. Max lightly touches the silvery hand print on her chest and his anger swells again. 

“The truth,” he says.

“I’ll tell you in the car,” she answers. “Don’t we have to get going?”

He relents. It hurts him to give up control, and no one seems to be letting him fix anything they way he wants. They get in his truck, and she fulfills her promise of telling him what happened with Noah.

“I hate him. I hate that he touched you, or kidnapped you, or anything. I hate what he’s done to Isabel. Michael should hate him, too,” he says bitterly, as they approach the cave with the three sibling’s pods.

“I doubt he likes him very much, Max. He’s just as angry as you are. But you both use that anger differently-- you want different things,” she tells him. 

They get out of the car to help Michael secure Noah into a pod until they can decide what to do.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purpose of this chapter, most of what happened at Caulfield happened. *most*
> 
> This is short like all the updates have been but I think I've decided short chapters will just have to do, because I can't seem to find the time to get the whole story out but in pieces!

Max and Liz pull into his driveway just a few hours before dawn.

 

“Thanks for letting me stay here the rest of the night,” Liz says. “I just couldn’t…”, her voice trails off as she thinks about trying to go home and pretend she wasn’t just kidnapped by an alien disguised as a well-loved local figure.

 

“Of course,” Max says, as they get out of the car and solemnly make their way inside.

 

“Are you hungry?” he asks Liz.

 

“I probably should be… but no,” she answers.  “Do you think I could just take a shower?”

 

Max nods and leads her into the only bathroom with a shower, connected to his bedroom in his moderately sized home.

 

“Here’s a towel, and I guess I’ll give you a shirt to wear,” he says, looking at her ruined white evening gown.  It’s hard to even remember why they were all dressed up this evening after everything Noah did to each of them in the span of just a few hours.

 

“Thanks,” she says, but he’s already turned and left, closing the door behind him.  She was impatient for him to leave so she can try to wash this day off of her, but being alone makes her calmer facade being to crumble.  She undresses, and looks at herself in the mirror. Noah’s silvery hand print mocks her, glowing on her chest. Something between rage and despair hits her, and she quickly turns on the shower and begins scrubbing at her chest.

 

It does nothing, and she knew it wouldn’t.  When Max had left his hand print on her, she had a range of emotions but never disgust and anger like she has now.

 

She scrubs her entire body and ends up sitting on the shower floor, letting the water roll down her long hair, her head on her knees.  She needs to fall apart, to process the evening. That would be an acceptable response to this scenario, wouldn’t it? She isn’t one to shame herself over her emotions, but is afraid if she lets the anger give way to tears she’ll never stop crying, and she isn’t sure she wants to show that much in front of Max.  

 

A few tears escape silently, but the energy she put into trying to clean the hand off helped some, and she’s so exhausted she decides to quit indulging in the swirl of emotions and get out.

 

Max has left a large gray shirt on the counter and she realizes she never even heard him open the door to leave it.  Her cheeks color a bit thinking of the frosted glass shower door, but Max is so proper he probably threw the shirt from the door and left.  

 

She puts it on, and laughs.   _ Roswell High _ is emblazoned across the front.  She pulls on the boxers he left and rolls the waistband to make them fit before halfheartedly trying to towel dry her hair.

 

“Oh my gosh, Max, how old is this shirt?” she teases, when she comes out of the bathroom, amazed a small but genuine smile is possible.  He is lying on his side, barely awake, but he startles and sits up, looking at her as a few different emotions wash across his face.

 

“It’s… Not young,” he laughs.  “Looks good on you, though.”

 

They look at each other awkwardly for a moment, and she’s unsure what to do.  They’ve slept in the same bed before but she can’t exactly say that ended well, not when all was said and done.  It was simply fun while it lasted.

 

She half smiles and heads for the door.

 

“Liz, where are you going?” Max looks confused.

 

“Uh, the couch?”

 

“Stop being silly and lay down,” he says. 

 

She wants nothing more than to curl up with him, but she knows that’s not what he wants.  Or that’s not what he wants in the same way she does. Or something.  She’s too tired to think.  

 

She slips under the blankets on the far side of the bed, and involuntarily groans.

 

“Oh God, your bed feels good,” she mumbles.

 

Max lays back down and they are now facing each other.

 

“I’m sorry, Liz, about all of this,” Max says.

 

She sees the sincerity in his eyes and wonders, maybe not for the first time, why Max thinks he has to hold up the world for everyone in it.

 

“You’re not the one that did anything, Max,” she says softly.  They hold each other’s eyes again, and hers threaten to spill over.

 

He turns and looks at the ceiling.  

 

“You are constantly in danger because of me.  I should have known.  _ How _ could I have not known he was one of us, all this time?” Max asks, not really looking for an answer.

 

“Hey, enough!  You’re going to blame yourself for his actions?  Then blame Isabel too. You’d think his partner in life would know, wouldn’t you?” Liz fires off, breaking the stillness of the room.

 

“Isabel didn’t do anything wrong,” Max said, surprised.  “That’s not fair.”

 

Liz quiets back down, and gives him a look.

 

“And by that logic, neither did you,” Liz says.  Max opens his mouth to protest but stops. She has him.

 

“He didn’t  _ want _ to be found out, Max.  A person like him, driven to extremes by being isolated, maybe not so great of a person before… He was calculated.  He didn’t want to be found out by you all, so he wasn’t,” she says. “It doesn’t make sense to me, and I tried to get him to tell me why that was his strategy, but it is what it is.  You can’t be everyone’s hero all the time, Max.”

 

He sighs and rolls back towards her.

 

“Are you okay, Liz?  Really okay?” he asks.

 

“I will be,” she says, swallowing hard, and hoping she’s not lying.  She rubs the hand print. She can feel it there, a slight burning still.

 

“Can you take this off?” she asks.  She knows it’s a desperate long shot.

 

Max looks pained.  Everything she ever needs from him seem to fall under the few things he can’t do.

 

“I...I don’t think it works that way, Liz,” he says.

 

“Please, please can you try?” she practically begs.

 

“Does it hurt?” he asks.

 

“It burns-- I think.  Unless it’s in my head.  Or maybe that’s from me trying to scrub it off,” she says.  Max doesn’t look as surprised at that as she thought he might.

 

“But it’s not that.  I… I don’t like feeling him.  I didn’t mind feeling you. It was different.  So different. But this is dark, and bitter. It’s not like when you left a mark on me,” she explains.  “It got a lot better when we put him in the pod. But it’s like an echo, and it’s making it harder.”

 

Max reaches out and gingerly pulls the collar of the shirt down, exposed more of the hand print, and more of her skin.  He traces it with his finger, anger flickering through his emotions. He puts his hand fully on her chest, covering it entirely.

 

She takes in a deep breath.  “It feels a little better when you do that,” she says.

 

“I’m too afraid to leave another mark though, Liz.  I don’t know what effect that could have on you,” he says.

 

“A weak little human like me, huh?” she smiles, but grabs his wrist, holding his hand where he laid it on her chest, and closing her eyes.

 

“It helps Max.  You help,” she holds him there a moment longer, finally letting go.

 

“I wanted to be an alien, when Noah had me.  I wanted to be strong, and able, and have some way to defend myself,” she admits.  

 

He laughs, but it’s somewhat bitter.  

 

“You don’t want to be one of us, trust me,” Max said.

 

“It must be nice to never get sick, though, come on,” she teases.

 

Another moment passes, and their eyes grow heavy.  

 

“You did defend yourself, Liz.  You saved the day. Did you forget?” Max asks. 

 

She ignores that, and touches her hand to his wrist once more.  “So this empty feeling inside will fade with the hand print?” she asks.

 

“Yeah, just like the feelings faded last time,” he replies simply, his eyes closed.  

 

“They didn’t fade last time Max, but that was different,” she whispers.  "I lied," she says, even softer still.

 

She doesn’t know if he heard her, and she falls asleep as well.  They still lay facing one another, their hands touching ever so slightly in the middle of the bed.

 

____________________________________________________________________________

  
  


Liz wakes with a start, trying to remember why she is laying next to a sleeping Max is in bed.  It all comes flooding back, and she sits up, putting her head on her knees and wishing she had been dreaming.

 

Max looks up at her blearily, having been woken up by her sudden movements.

 

“Hey, you okay?” he asks.

 

“I’m fine.  Just thinking that last night should have been a nightmare, but no, it wasn’t,” she says, turning her head to her side, still resting it on her knees.

 

“I love it when I wake up and the woman next to me says last night was a nightmare,” he says.

 

She gives him a wry grin for his efforts, and lays back down.  

 

“So what now?” she muses.

 

“Let’s just start with coffee,” he says, stretching his back while he lays down, revealing his stomach and making him look even taller.

 

Liz ogles him for a minute but then tries to remember herself, instead of remembering the last time she woke up with him.

 

“Coffee.  Make it extra strong and you are a man after my own heart,” she says.  They both get up to start the day, much too early.

 

___________________________________________________________________________

 

They arrive at the cave feeling only slightly more awake in the late morning, finding Isabel laying on a makeshift bed inside, facing the pods.

 

“Did you sleep here?” Max asks.

 

Isabel sits up and looks away and says, “Someone has to make sure he doesn’t get out.”

 

It’s obvious that its more than that, but he doesn’t press her.

 

Michael arrives as well and the three siblings stare at Noah in the pod, in an uncomfortable silence.  Michael, predictably, breaks it.

 

“I’m taking him out.  I need answers.” Michael says forcefully.

 

“You don’t get to decide that,” Max replies coolly.

 

“Right, but you do?” Michael bites.

 

They stare at each other, at a complete impasse.

 

“And your solution is what, Max?  That we kill him? Or leave him in there forever?” Isabel asks.  “He was  _ my _ husband.  I need to think this through.”

 

“He was your husband, fine, but he left Michael and I to die, killed Rosa, and was probably going to kill Liz too,” Max says.

 

“We  _ all _ know he’s guilty of everything Max, but he’s our only link to our history.  Don’t you want to know?” Michael asks.

 

Isabel steps in between the brothers and the pods, demanding their attention.

 

“I  _ said _ I need to think.  Without you two arguing.  If we take him out, he dies without the serum.  If we give him the serum, he might just kill us.  Or run away, or  _ something.   _ Can you two just agree that right now he isn’t going anywhere, isn’t dying, and that we can take a breath for a day.  For a month even! He’s in stasis. You two go away,” Isabel demands.

 

She sits back down and it becomes apparent she is brooking no argument.  Michael scoffs and turns on his heel.  

 

Max and Liz follow him outside.

 

“We can give her her space, Max, but this isn’t your call.  It just isn’t,” Michael says, spinning back around just as he nears his car door.

 

Liz had been trying to be unobtrusive-- no easy task for her-- but decides to speak up.

 

“You know guys, it’s not all or nothing.  Like Isabel said, he’s in stasis. You have time to reach a compromise, or talk to him  _ and  _ mete out your justice,” she points out.

 

Michael looks at her,  _ trying _ to decide if she’s a nuisance for even being involved, or if she could be useful in talking sense into Max.

 

“Whatever.  I’m out.  Alex wanted me to go visit some place called Caulfield,” he says, leaving any more details than that out on purpose.  Making decisions with Max is exhausting, so he may as well see if there is something to say before he bothers.  He gets in his car and speeds off.

 

Max and Liz get into his truck.

 

Instead of putting the key in the ignition, Max rests his head back and closes his eyes.

 

“Take me back to the cafe.  I’ll feed you. Maybe we should bring Isabel food and then leave her for another day,” Liz says.

 

Max turns his head.

 

“I do worry about her, you know.  It’s not that I don’t realize she’s even more traumatized at this point.  I just don’t think any good comes from keeping him around or keeping him alive.  Isabel and Michael need someone to help them see that some time.  That they are too attached to where we came from,” Max said.

 

She wonders if she should ask him if he’s sure about that.  He seems so certain that decisive choices are the way to live, while she makes flexibility her plan, and Michael makes searching for something better his, maybe attached to his restlessness.  Isabel seemed content but that was just shattered, through nothing anyone saw coming.

 

She wonders if what Max views as embracing what he has... or  _ wants _ for that matter...is his own version of running from the unknown.  But she doesn’t say anything, because how could she ever know what any of that feels like?  


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up with Michael from the canon of the end of episode 12, Creep.  I told you MOST of it was the same, but not all! As perfectly heartbreaking as this episode was, it bothered me that we believe Michael has telekinesis enough to move things, but not influence objects in other ways.

 

Michael touches his hand to the glass and it shatters, finally bending to his will and ability to influence physical objects.  He picks his mother up deftly and runs out of the building, Alex by his side, with not a second to spare to save anyone else.

 

His legs scream from exertion, but finally they are far enough away and he crouches down behind the cars, holding the elderly woman as gently as he can.

 

None of this is making sense.  He’s holding an old woman, who should be his grandmother or more by age, but she isn’t.  She’s his mother. They haven’t even spoken and yet he knows it to be true from their other worldly communication.

 

She is frail, and weak, and it’s confusing to him.  He knows he was in the pod in stasis for much, much longer than the rest of the ship.  But that had led them all to assume their parents were long dead; not living and simply very very old.

 

Why doesn’t he remember her at all?  Why don’t they remember anything of their lives before the crash and Noah does?

 

He could scream at the unfairness of it all.  

 

He braces himself and holds her close when the building explodes behind them.

__________________________________________________________________________

 

It is late when they return to the outskirts of Roswell.  Michael is filled with an odd sense of shame that he has no home to bring his mother to; nothing to show for his life.  He never cared that he wasn’t the type you took home to your parents, but the possibility of bringing his own parent to a comfortable home had never occurred to him.  The possibility of having someone to make proud simply hadn’t been in the cards for him, except maybe Max-- and he wasn’t going to examine how annoying that was-- and there was no one in the world he knew that he could have ever wanted to impress. 

 

No one except the still silent aging woman sitting in his passenger seat.  

 

He drove straight to Max’s house.  At least that was somewhere he could take someone.

 

“Max, open up!  Max!” he pounded on the door.

 

When Max opens the door he has no idea what to think of a very manic looking Michael, holding an elderly woman at his side.  

 

He steps aside and Michael walks in without saying anything.  He walks his mother to the couch and sits her down gently. In an instant he’s up and pacing the room, a stark contrast to the way he moved with his mother at his side.

 

Max just stands watching the scene unfold, trying to process what is happening.

 

“Help me out here, Michael,” he says in his confusion, at the same time that Michael explodes.

 

“Caulfield was a prison.  An  _ abandoned prison for aliens.   _ Miles away!  They’ve been there the whole time, Max.  Just miles away,” he says as he paces. “They blew it up.  They blew it up because I found it, and saved her. Everyone else is gone, and we didn’t even know they were there.”

 

He gestures with his arm to the woman sitting observantly on the couch.

 

“This is my mother, Max.  This is my  _ mother _ ,” Michael says.  His outburst over, he sinks to his knees in front of her and puts his head in her lap.  She runs her hands through his hair and brings his face up, cupping his chin.

 

“I talked a lot in the beginning,” she says looking him in the eyes, Michael hearing her actual voice for the first time.

 

“It’s how humans communicate since they don’t have our capabilities.  We mostly talk too, of course, with those we aren’t close with. I thought talking to the humans would help us,” she pauses, looking at Max for the first time.

 

“It did not,” she states with finality.

 

Michael gets up from his position and sits next to his mother on the couch, and her hands fall into her lap.  He leans forward, his hands on his knees, his head turned towards her and Max.

 

Max sits down in the chair that mostly faces the couch, back straight, ready, as if he’s in the middle of an investigation.  He finds himself drawn to her, and desperately wanting to hear what she has to say.

 

“You must be him,” she says, peering at Max.  “And where is Vilandra?”

 

She looks between them both. 

 

 “I think you mean Isabel?” Max says.  

 

“Ah, Isabel.  And your earth names are?” she asks again.

 

She speaks with a quiet authority that subdues the men’s questions, and they sit somewhat spellbound at the presence of an elder they never knew they could have.

 

“Max,” he replies.

 

“Michael,” says Michael.

 

“Max… Michael…” she says, as if considering.  “My given name is Mara. That is not what you would have called me, on our planet, not most of the time.  But I don’t think I deserve my titles any longer, so call me Mara.”

 

Max clears his throat, answering her question rather than asking her what she means.

 

“Isabel is here, and she is fine.  She’s close by. The last few days have been… eventful,” Max supplies.  “There is a lot we don’t understand, and don’t know…. There is a fourth alien living here in Roswell.”

 

Michael’s mother makes a face at the word alien.

 

“Antarian, my dear.  We are Antarian. Our home world was named Antar,” she says.

 

Michael looks at her with an unreadable expression.

 

“.... was called Antar?  Is it still there?” he asks.  

 

“I simply don’t know, but anything is possible,” she says.  “It wouldn’t seem any other ships left and arrived here, but I doubt our planet was destroyed entirely.  It was already becoming somewhere we didn’t recognize, however. How…. long has it been?” she asks.

 

“Seventy years.  Since the crash,” Michael whispers, everything seeming so unknown, more than when he knew less.  “Seventy earth years?”

 

She goes silent again, contemplating.

 

“I know you have questions.  But I want to know what’s happened with you all.  I…. I never thought we’d see you. We never even knew you all survived.  We don’t know what happened to anyone that wasn’t at the prison with us, and were led to believe everyone aboard died that day.  It’s likely they did,” she grimaces, as if remembering something horrible.

 

Suddenly her head snaps up, and she looks excited, and far less old and weary for just a moment.

 

“Who is the fourth?  Who else survived? Who are they to you?” she asked quickly.

 

Max and Michael exchange a look, and Max slowly gets up and takes a picture of Isabel from her wedding off of the bookshelf behind the couch.

 

He walks back and places the photo in Mara’s hands.

 

“We call him Noah,” he says.  “It’s… complicated. He never told us he was one of us.  He married Isabel and we’ve known him for years, but he never told us.”

 

Mara grimaces again, and looks defeated once again.

 

She takes a huge breath and closes her eyes, shaking her head in grief.

 

“It would be someone like him to do something like that,” she says stonily.

 

Max and Michael exchange confused looks.

 

“As I said, I know you have many questions, but I feel the issue of this Noah is something I need to understand.  Take my hands, and show me what has happened,” she instructs them.  

 

“It will be faster,” she adds, when they don’t comply immediately.

 

They pull themselves together and each take one of her outstretched hands, entering her mindscape.  It’s easy, even easier than it is with Noah, and it’s as if they can feel the difference in communicating with someone well versed in the usage of their abilities.

 

They show her more than tell her their versions of events with Noah, sometimes with images of their memories overlapping, and sometimes with words.

 

She brings them out of it with a heavy heart, looking as if the weight of her world rests on her shoulders.

 

“One failure out of many,” she states.  “What did we do to you all? What did we condemn ourselves to?”  

 

“We haven’t had bad lives,” Max is quick to reassure her.  Michael shoots him a look, their ever present different world views always making itself known.  

 

She gives Max a penetrating look, as if she is searching his face for the story of his life since emerging from the pod.

 

“There is much you don’t know, but of course your life here has been unlike the rest of us held captive.  For that we are eternally grateful,” she said.

 

“It was your mother that saved and hid your pods.  When she came back for more, she was captured with us.  One day she did not return from wherever she was taken,” Mara said.

 

“She didn’t return, so she…” Max trails off.  He hadn’t let his brain get far in wondering whether or not his family had been in the prison that just exploded, or could have survived in some other way.  What were the chances, anyway?

 

“She saved you all.  The royal three,” she said.

 

Michael sucks in a breath.

 

“The royal three?” he says, skeptically.

 

“As I said, there is much you all do not know.  Please take me to this Noah,” she commands. “It needs to be dealt with.

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

The three arrive at the cave, Michael having called Isabel while Max drove, filling her in as quickly as possible on the events that had taken place while she kept her painful but self-imposed watch over her deceitful husband.

 

Mara walks in the cave, studying Isabel in her way, and Isabel straightens her back and lifts her chin, meeting her eyes, as she is assessed.

 

Mara reaches her hands out, and Isabel takes them, and suddenly, they are touching foreheads, quietly looking at each other in a closeness odd for two people who in some ways have just met.

 

Just as quickly, the moment is over.  

 

Mara turns to Noah, and they all follow suit, looking at him in the pod, where he looks deceivingly peaceful and harmless.  

 

“He caused the crash,” Mara said.  “He was not supposed to be allowed to come with us, not for all he had done.  It wasn’t always this way, my children.”

 

She sees the bowls of melted silver on the ground.

 

“Ah, smart children, aren’t you?  She raises her hand and melts some silver where she stands. “Pull him out please.”

Max opens his mouth to say something but she interjects.

 

“He is of no threat to me.  Besides, you have injected him with your… ‘medicine’,” she states.

 

“But he’ll die if he’s out for long.  We didn’t know what to do,” Isabel adds.

 

Mara turns to her.  

 

“I know what to do, and I have the authority.  He will pay for his crimes, and I am sorry for it, my dear.  Are you ready? Must you speak to him first?” she asks.

 

Isabel considers.  

 

“I would like to speak to him alone, in his mind, before you do what you will,” Isabel says.

 

“Very well,” Mara says.

 

Max walks to the pod and dips his hand in the silver, pulling Noah out, his anxiety and need to protect emanating from him.  He unceremoniously drops his hands, Noah falling on his knees to the floor as he catches his breath.

 

Noah looks up, seeing Mara, shock registering on his face.  He appears speechless and intimidated for perhaps the first time.

 

“We meet again,” Mara says, her face hard.  “You. You who caused us to crash, and then dared to torment the royal three.”

 

Noah struggles to recover his usual bravado, standing up and facing Mara with all the strength he has left.

 

“I deserved a place on that ship, and so did everyone you left behind,” Noah says.  “I won’t apologize for that.”

 

“You thought you could barter away freedom for their safekeeping?” Mara says with disdain.  You always had quite the ego. As if anyone would negotiate with you.”

 

Noah is silent for a beat as the thinks.

 

“Where were you all this time, my  _ sovereign _ ?” he asks.

 

She stares at him levelly.  

 

“Why come back now, and where is everyone else?” he persists.

 

“She was dying, in a cell, because of  _ you,  _ Noah!  In a prison with everyone else you caused to be captured!” shouts Michael.

 

Mara looks at him swiftly, a stern expression on her face.

 

Noah lets out a genuine laugh.

 

“Didn’t want me to know did you?” he asks, and he is clearly enjoying this unexpected information. “I thought you all died, and I was waiting for the Alighting that had been left behind, but this is better.  How did it feel, my fallen Mara? To be made like me?”

 

“You do not call me that,” she seethes.

 

“It seems I can call you whatever I like, now that we are both leaders turned prisoners.  What a fun turn of events! Has it not occurred to you,  _ still _ , that none of this would have happened if your family would have listened to us?” he asks.  “We could have lived together in peace! Traveled the galaxy, exploiting planets like this one, together!  _Unified!_ ”

 

Mara takes a deep breath, centering her anger.

 

“You are still lost, Nukhu.  And it pains me, but you will be taken to account now.  It pains me not for what you have done, but for what you could have been,” Mara says.

 

“Yes, I know the words,” he says quietly.  “Does it make you feel better to finally have me where you always wanted?”

 

“None of this could have ever felt better than staying on Antar, and living in peace,” she states.

 

She raises her hand, outstretching it, and Noah falls to the floor from where he had been kneeling, his life extinguished after so very long.

 

Mara looks weary, as if she can barely still stand.  Her body sags, and Michael intuitively walks up behind her and supports her.

 

“Please, children, enough for today.  Your Noah deserved this long ago, and rather than taking a second chance on this planet, he remained the same.  I do not have the energy to explain. I need rest,” she says quietly.

 

Isabel falls to her knees by Noah’s body, taking in his form for one of the last times.

 

Michael looks at Max.

 

“I’m taking her to your house.  You can deal with Noah?” he asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question.

 

Max nods, a solemn expression on his face.  For once, he realizes that letting Michael call the shots might be best.  He is too shell-shocked to do anything else, and manual labor and cleaning up a mess sounds like something he can focus on.

 

Michael guides Mara out of the cave, and Isabel and Max, those who had cared the least for questioning their existence, grapple silently with questions they now never knew they had.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so our favorite dysfunctional siblings have met an elder and dealt with Noah. Liz is a bit on the margins, only really knowing as much as directly happened to her.

Max and Isabel solemnly dig a hole, having searched for a spot deeper in the cave, for Noah’s body.

 

Isabel huffs in frustration as she tries to use her telekinesis to make the task easier.

 

“Michael could have done this easier,” she mutters. 

 

“I’m sorry, Isabel,” Max says.

 

She looks up at him, and rolls her eyes.

 

Max sighs.

 

“I am. Why don’t you leave. I’ll finish this,” he says.

 

“No,” she huffs again, maybe just in frustration at her entire life.

 

“I need to do this. I need to be there,” she laughs, and it’s a bit disturbing.  “Doesn’t everyone need to bury their deceitful alien husband for closure?”

 

Max just keeps working silently. Maybe space to let her respond to these overwhelming events how she wanted was the best policy. She continued to mutter and sigh to herself, until finally, they are done, the evidence of the past several days reduced to a mound of disturbed rock and earth.

 

“Anything you wanted to say to him?” Max asks.

 

“I said it already,” she replies simply. She turns on her heel and heads back toward the pods, and the mouth of the cave.

 

“Do you want to go to my---,” Max begins.

 

“Take me home. I want to be alone. Michael’s mom is too much right now,” Isabel says with finality. “You can fill me in later.”

 

Max arrives home in the early hours of the morning to find Mara asleep on his couch, and Michael sitting outside, staring off into the distance.  

 

“So. What now?” Max asks, heaving his body onto a chair, as if he hadn’t slept in a week.

 

“You know that I have no idea,” Michael replies, taking a sip out of the bottle in his hand.

 

_________________________________________________________________________

 

Liz picks up her phone, scrolling to Max’s name, and shuts it off, putting it away in her bedside table.

 

For the fourth time.

 

She is full of nervous energy, and desperately wants to see him. She’s always hated the feeling of being unable to stop thinking about someone; the magnetic pull. She can’t rest not knowing how he’s doing; but it’s not just the stress and the trauma of the last few days. She knows what it is, and she doesn’t want to admit it. She hasn’t enjoyed the vulnerability that love, or affection, or need, or  _ whatever this feeling is,  _ brings out in her since her mom left, and she’s plowed through life being quite satisfied with her general philosophy of independence.

 

Her life has been full of grief, and trauma, and the things humans go through that unwittingly build self-reliance. She had told Max she didn’t feel like she’d ever been in love, and she knows that is one part finding the right person, and another part not being open to it. She doesn’t  _ want _ to love anyone.  And she doesn’t, she thinks.  

 

Maybe she feels the need to talk to him because he made her feel safe. Maybe she was infatuated; it felt like a crush, right?  Maybe she was merely pining for their night together in the hotel.  

 

Except that the pull she felt towards making sure he was okay wasn’t really about her needs; it was simply because she was pained by wondering how he was doing. She wasn’t afraid for her life; Noah was dead. She’d stared at the text message he’d sent her sometime in the middle of the night before for what felt like hours, and let the guilt-inducing relief wash over her. She had simply responded “I’m so sorry”, and hadn’t heard anything since. It was now nearly dinner time, and she  _ should _ be helping her father in the diner as a distraction.

 

She was mildly worried about Michael and Isabel, she reasoned. They’d had a bad go of it, for sure. Concern for people was good, right? Maybe she was just worried about them. All of them.

 

She leaned back against her bed, and fished her phone back out of the drawer, having gotten nowhere trying to justify to herself why she was desperate to hear from Max. This time she scrolled through her camera, looking at every picture she had of Max and her.

 

“It’s barely been a day since you’ve seen him,” she muttered to herself. She turned her phone completely off and left it in the apartment to go help out in the diner.  

 

But when she got downstairs, she saw it wasn’t all that busy, so instead she made some extra food to take over to his house.  He needed to eat, right?

 

_________________________________________________________________________

  
  


Michael hadn’t left Max’s home once, staying by his mother’s side as she rested on the couch, listening to her breathing, and maybe trying to sense her emotions and thoughts. He desperately wanted her to be alert again, but between him rescuing her from the prison, her talk with them at Max’s, going to the cave and the punishment she gave to Noah, and coming home here to rest, she’d done more activity in 24 hours that her body wanted to allow.

 

So Michael sat by her. Relishing in her presence yet terrified to even look away from her, as if she were an illusion waiting to disappear, a product of his lonely, bitter mind. 

 

Sitting with Michael in silence for the better part of a day had Max thinking about all the reasons Liz-- or anyone-- shouldn’t be a part of their lives.  _ How could a human ever be safe around us? Even if Noah hadn’t kidnapped her, you can barely keep your powers under control,  _ he told himself, his thoughts swirling everywhere. 

 

He thinks about Rosa, and about the lightning fractals on Liz’s arm when she was doing her ‘research’ on him and he lost control.  He thought about blowing out the town, and causing the blackout in high school. Maybe he’s spent too long being too romantic and sentimental for anyone’s good.  Meeting Mara was a painful reminder of the fact that he and his siblings weren’t human, and simply didn’t belong here, among them. So far, what good had come from any relationship any of them had had?

 

He sat quietly opposite the couch while Michael maintained his vigil, wishing Noah had never found them; wishing guiltily that no one had survived to be tortured, and now come to tell him his history but consequently blow up his fragile existence. 

 

Max heard the timid knocking around 6 p.m. and quietly crept to the door. If it were anybody but the dark-haired girl standing outside holding a bag of food, smiling like she hadn’t just been kidnapped by a now deceased alien, and he would have stayed quiet until they gave up and went away.

 

He opened the door and stepped out, closing it behind him, rather than opening the door wide and waving her in. He recognized that letting anyone into the house right now would be intruding, and had been trying to give Michael space for his simultaneous joy and grief.

 

Standing close to Liz on the stoop, his heart pounded, because he knew what he was going to say.

 

“Hey,” she started. “I brought you some food again. I thought you might need to eat.”

 

“You really like feeding people, huh?” Max smiled, though it was slightly forced.

 

“Always. People love you when you bring them restaurant food for free,” she joked.

 

A beat passed, and she frowned in confusion when she realized he wasn’t going to invite her in.

 

“So... uh, I hadn’t heard from you. I was worried, Max,” she said.

 

Max scoffed. 

 

“You were worried about  _ me _ ? I thought we covered this the other night. Me: invincible alien. You: fragile human,” he said.

 

“Oh come on, Max. I thought we covered the other night that you don’t have to be the hero all the time,” she said. 

 

They locked eyes, butterflies beating away in her chest. His expression made her nervous. He’d been an open book about his feelings, completely vulnerable usually, and now he looked guarded and withdrawn, staring down at her. 

 

He knew he needed to get her off of his porch, and probably out of his life. And she was so stubborn.

 

“Liz, thanks for the food. It’s sweet. But I need to...I have things I need to sort out here, without anyone else around. Family things.  Noah is gone. You know the truth about your sister. I think it’s best if we continued moving on,” he said.

 

Liz’s mouth dropped open. 

 

“Wait, Max. I thought… I thought we were… friends?” she said, uncertainly.

 

“I can’t be the kind of friend you want, Liz. You got close to me to get the truth, and you got it. And that’s fine, but it’s over. And I can’t be...whatever other kind of friend you like to keep either,” he said. 

 

“Max!” she sputtered, in complete shock. “That’s not what this is, and it hasn’t been for months now!”

 

Max looks past her, at the desert, and swallows. He can’t look at her eyes any longer.

 

“I was… caught up in the past, okay? You found what you were looking for, and barely got out alive. Just… it’s just better this way, okay? I need to get back inside,” he said.

 

She drops the food, and grabs his bicep as he turns, trying to keep him from leaving her standing there.

 

“Max, what’s going on? Who’s over here? What is happening?” she asks rapid fire questions, because she can’t accept his change of heart.

 

He stops, but doesn’t fully turn back around, putting his hand on top of hers where it sits on his arm.

 

“Stop worrying, Liz. I need to get back inside,” he pleads, looking at the ground to the side. He is failing miserably at his mission to get her to detach from the situation, and squeezes her hand. She steps forward and he can’t help but turn around fully, just as she embraces him.

 

“Max… I don’t  _ want _ to be away from you. I thought that was how you felt too,” she says desperately. She finally realizes she’s letting him slip away by holding him at arm’s length, and it’s silly.

 

He hugs her tightly. But steels his resolve. 

 

“I did. But too much has happened. And you’ve never wanted what I want. I’m done forcing things that weren’t meant to be,” he says.

 

“Can’t we just start over?” she asks, her voice muffled in his broad chest.

 

“I thought you had to get back to your own work anyway, Liz,” he says, ignoring her question. Honestly, he’s a bit confused by her sudden clinginess, so he plows on with the decision to simplify both of their lives.

 

He gently pushes her away, and can’t stand to look at her hurt expression.

 

“I’ll see you around maybe,” he states.

 

She wants to cry, and hates how much this feels like a breakup.

 

“Maybe,” she echoes, confused.

 

He walks inside and closes the door behind him.

 

He sits back down heavily, and Michael looks at him curiously.

 

“Who was that?” he asks.

 

Max sighs.  

 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

 

“You look like shit, Max. And you’re a terrible liar. What did Liz want, anyway?”

 

Max is too tired to be annoyed.

 

“It doesn’t matter. I sent her away,” he says quietly. “That’s what you and Iz always wanted anyway. You can't convince me you wanted me to invite her in to meet the parents.”

 

Michael feels the tiniest pang of guilt at that. He didn’t feel bad about his general mistrust of her or anyone, but she hadn’t betrayed them yet, even after everything.

 

“I thought… I thought it was supposed to be Max and Liz forever, with hearts and kissy faces and shit,” Michael said.

 

“Oh please Michael,” Max says, scrubbing his hands over his face, feeling his stubble from the last few days, and the burning exhaustion behind his eyes.  He leans back and stares at the ceiling. “You don’t believe in anything remotely happy or romantic, anyway.”

 

“But… you do,” Michael says quietly.

 

Max gets up and heads to his bedroom, too tired to talk about anything with Michael.

____________________________________________________________________________

 

The next morning, Isabel appears at Max’s house with pastries and a surprisingly chipper attitude. 

 

The three sit down and eat breakfast, and Mara stirs, sitting up gracefully as if she hadn’t just slept for a day.

 

“Ah, good, you are all here. It is time to talk more, then,” she says, and waits patiently.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have many notes because I hope that the story is speaking for itself. Everyone needs a friend like Maria, and I'm glad the showrunner says she hopes to have more Maria in the next season. I rewatched some episodes to check some things while writing, and I'm still mad at how adorably charming Noah's character was BEFORE. I may need to look up what else Karan Oberoi has been in.

Michael had been wanting to take Mara to see the console of the ship that he had been trying to rebuild since the moment he rescued her from the prison. He worried that she was already at the end of her life, and barely surviving in the cell when he found her. Antarians must really be resilient, physically, he mused. She  _ had _ to be the missing key to leaving this planet, but whether or not she’d be around to help him, he didn’t know.

 

He had never wanted to tell Max about the ship, unless and until there was something to tell, and maybe not even then--- but saw no other way but to bring it up in front of everyone as he was possibly running out of time. Isabel had finally come, having spent the day before thinking about her own life and healing. It looked to him like it was now or never.

 

The three ‘siblings’ surrounded Mara as she sat on the couch, in the same place she had the first time she spoke to Max and Michael. It hadn’t been a whole week since then, but it felt like so very much had happened in that time period.

 

“We could go back, Mara,” Michael blurted out. He hadn’t really known if aliens call their parents names like ‘mom’

 

She looked up at him quizzically.

 

“I have been finding pieces of the ship. Maybe the control panel. It seems to rebuild itself,” Michael began talking, quickly.

 

Isabel looked up in surprise.

 

“You’ve been doing what now?” Max asked.

 

He wanted to argue, and yell, and rail against Michael for keeping something this big from them, yet again. But the three seemed to be attempting an unspoken truce these past few days, at least in the presence of one of their elders.

 

Mara just looked deflated, as she often did, and shook her head slightly.

 

“Michael, what did you hope to do with half a ship, that you can’t fly?” she asked.

 

“I thought maybe if I could find it all, I could get off this planet. I could find my home,” he replied.

 

Max scoffed at the absurdity of the idea.

 

“You know what Max, at least I’ve tried!  We aren’t human, we aren’t meant to be here,” he said, turning towards him.

 

Mara took a breath again and held out her hands.  

 

“I have been remiss in educating you three since we were reunited,” Mara said, holding out her two hands. “It’s just that meting out The Ruling took more from me than I had left, and I have been here just trying to stay alive now that I’m in your presence again.” 

 

 Empty bottles of acetone sit on the table next to her.

 

She laughs, at their cluelessness at her outstretched hands.

 

“Take my hands, children, so that I may speak with you,” she says, continuing to hold out her hands. 

 

“On Antar, you needn’t touch to speak telepathically, but it is an offer, an invitation--- that you are opening yourself to the other person,” she explains.

 

All four of them link hands and close their eyes.

 

In their minds, they see a great city, rising from a forest, but not encroaching on it, somehow.  Mara is giving them a view from a time she was flying over the capital city as she, as a member of the Alighting, was returning from visiting another city.

 

The city is beautiful, and made of hard materials that look like they were carved from stone and rock that could be found on earth. The forest surrounding the city isn’t cut through by any roads, though there are landing pads for ships such as the one Mara is on on the tops of the rounded, carved buildings. There are no sharp corners or angles.  Everything seems organic with the nature around it, but no less impressive for it, as the city is large and clearly full of technology that humans have yet to create.

 

“It’s beautiful,” Isabel breathes.

 

Her awe is quickly replaced by a different emotion.

 

Mara changes the scene to the same city, but now she is present at something like a court, and the person they knew as Noah is there.

 

The atmosphere is disunified, and people are angry, on either side. Noah seems to be a leader of a faction that is unhappy with the Alighting.

 

“We won’t live like this any more... We won’t have it,” he addresses them, and several people behind him nod.

 

“It is unnatural to suppress our powers the way you force us to! You do not see that you deny us what we are!” he continues.

 

There are cheers mixed in with angry yells.

 

A woman seated to the right of Mara raises her hands to silence the court.

 

“Your motives are self-serving as usual, Nukhu, and you will be held accountable,” she says with finality.

 

A woman runs up from behind Noah.

 

“But you get to use your powers to rule? You get to suppress us all, and why? Where is the equity in that!” she demands.

 

“Stop this dissent!” the woman yells. “We are the Alighting, established by all those that came before us, so that you may live in peace!”

 

“We have been living in peace,” Noah shouts. “We formed a community under your nose and lived for years!”

 

A man to Mara’s left scoffs.

 

“You are from little more than a penal colony! You’re an exile, and you think you can call that living in peace!” he thunders.

 

“You would exile all those that disagree with you, not for society’s sake as you claim, but to keep your status. We don’t want to leave Antar, but you will not let us live here. We didn’t want to leave the capitol, but you exile us. Change, or be changed. That is your choice, O Rulers,” Noah says disdainfully. 

 

“You cover up your crimes with righteous indignation,” Mara says. 

 

“And you cover your thirst for power with pretend righteousness as well. But really you are just afraid, not of us but of losing your status!” shouts someone behind Noah.

 

“For centuries, we visited other planets, gained strength and returned. For centuries! Until your families decided it was wrong!” Noah said. “Who are you to decide?” 

 

Mara is emitting a diversity of emotions that threaten to pull everyone into her inner turmoil at her memories-- despair, regret, anger.

 

The scene changes again, and this time the city is broken and war torn, and the lush greenery that had lined the pathways between stone buildings are now burning. The forest surrounding the great city has been set on fire and trampled through, though not entirely destroyed.  

 

Mara’s thoughts permeate this scene after she lets them take it in for a moment, and they see through her eyes as she wandered the streets of her city, through a large clearing that must have been a market. People are sneaking through it under the cover of night, to a large ship, preparing to evacuate.

 

_ They ambushed the capital city through the forest. Antarians have great respect for the plants and animals that sustain the health of the planet. We built our cities in valleys, and mountains, and clearings, flying over the city, occasionally walking.  _

 

_ Nukhu’s band of rebels trampled the forest, building and bringing weapons they had heard of from the history of our trips to other planets. They brought destruction and pain. The families that formed the Alighting put an end to most interplanetary travel, and to using our powers for conquest and personal gain. We knew nothing good would come of it.   _

 

_ Nukhu convinced those cast out for using their powers against others that we were power hungry tyrants. Many fled, many were killed, and those of us that had hidden under the city escaped one night. We never would have imagined Nuhku left with us, but perhaps he realized he had destroyed the city he wanted to live in again.  _

 

_ Were we power hungry?...  _ Her inner voice trails off. _ If we were, we paid our price. _

 

She shows the three images of themselves as children, off playing, some time before the rebellion.

 

They see them enter their pods, and get on the ship to evacuate.

 

And then the session ends.

 

Mara looks impossibly tired, but speaks.

 

“You were the royal three. The only children of the five ruling families that originally formed the Alighting. Those with children, both of your parents---,” she looks at Max and Isabel, “---and I, left with anyone in the capital that wanted to evacuate. The other two families that comprised the Alighting stayed behind to try to fix the situation and reason with the rebels. We have no idea what happened on Antar, because we had no idea Nukhu actually stowed away and came with us. Maybe he had a disagreement with another leader of their cause.”

 

“So… are we like, cousins?” Max asks.

 

Isabel laughs out loud, smiling for the first time in days.

 

“This is what you are asking,” she prods him.

 

“Well, he’s not exactly wrong. We often intermarried our children because we did not trust the common folk to marry into the Alighting. There were no rules about it, of course, but you all share a few common ancestors,” she replied, as if that should sound completely logical to them. 

 

“I’d have to remember the family trees going a few generations back,” she added. “It also kept the powers we have that we used to rule in the same families, but did not eliminate it entirely among the population. Any Antarian may developed their powers, like Nukhu and others did.  But we were trying to protect everyone from themselves.”

 

The royal three looked at each other in surprise, realizing for the first time how complicated their backstories must be.  

 

“Uh, okay,” Max said. He had been trying to add levity. “I guess we thought that we were just explorers that crash landed… I didn’t realize….”.

 

Memories of their camping trips surface in both Michael and Max’s mind, and their eyes meet.

 

“We used to, a long time ago, when we were still children, make up stories about where we might be from. But they were fun stories, good stories. Stories where we were adventurers. We pretended we were the alien version of a castaway lost at sea,” Michael says sadly, to his mother. “I… this isn’t what I thought.”

 

“You had no way of knowing,” she responded, gently.

 

“Well, I consider you my brothers no matter what,” Isabel says, always needing to break away from intensity.

 

That provokes a small smile from everyone in the room.

 

“You could consider propagating our race,” Mara says evenly. “Though I’m not sure there is any future for us here, no matter what you do. I will die. And you three will die. And it doesn’t seem anyone on Antar knows, or cares.  _ If _ they know where we ended up,  _ if _ the rest of the Alighting are even still alive…. It doesn’t seem we will ever know for sure.”

 

Her voice gets softer, and softer, and she lays her slight frame back into the couch.

 

“Do they even know we landed on Earth?” Michael asks, suddenly, jumping up. Panic begins bubbling up in his chest, and he sees the urgency of finding out everything he can.

 

“Earth was not our first choice,” Mara said. “We thought Nukhu might have brought us here on purpose. His group enjoyed the legends of how powerful we looked to humans, and it’s odd that we look so much like them. It’s likely the ship crashed because he tried to override the course setting while most of us rested in our pods.”

 

The room falls silent while they try to process the information, and Mara decides it is enough for one day.

 

“You each get one more question from me,” she said. “But first, I need to rest.Tomorrow.”

 

She lays down, her head in Michael’s lap.  He sits, cradling her, and it occurs to him he’s never held anyone like that, not even Alex.

 

____________________________________________________________________________

 

Late that afternoon, Liz pulls up a stool at the bar while Maria stocks and cleans, and  she heaves herself down grumpily.

 

“Okay, what’s up?” Maria asks, smiling indulgently.

 

“I think I have more than a crush on Max,” she pouts. “And he doesn’t want me anymore.”

 

She puts her head on the bartop with a huff.

 

“There is no world in which Max doesn’t want you, Liz,” Maria says, curiosity peaked. “So go ahead and spill.”

 

She pours a drink and sets it in front of Liz.

 

“I don’t know where to start. He… said some things that are true. Things I did do. Maybe I used him a bit,” she mused. 

 

She wished Maria had accidentally found the truth out about the three so that she could spill it all. Max had, gently she supposed, called her out for pretending to want to research on him to find out the truth about Rosa, and now that she had, he assumed she was done with him. 

 

Maria sighed.

 

“Liz. Even with me, you only give half the story here. Tell. Me. What. Happened,” she laughed, punctuating her words. “You aren’t exactly known for letting people in.”

 

Liz smiled up at her with her chin on her hands and took a long drink. She could probably tell her the most important parts.

 

“Okay, so you know Max had a crush on me for forever, and we almost kissed before I left for the summer, just before Rosa died,” she starts.

 

“I told him that I knew if I kissed him, I’d want to stay, and I would never be the type of girl to stick around for a cute boy.”

 

“So you responded to him wanting to kiss you at the end of high school, a normal highschooler activity, with typical Liz intensity and guardedness, got it. Continue,” Maria interjected.

 

Liz feigned an annoyed face at her.

 

“Yes, and so then I came back and when I was...when the diner was shot into, and Max was there, it was intense. And I felt things for him. But he told me it was just the effects of the traumatic experience and to wait a few days and see if I still felt that way.”

 

Maria rolled her eyes.

 

“Soooooooo like a dude to pretend he knows how you feel more than you do,” Maria said.

 

Liz couldn’t tell her that while that would usually be true, this time, it might have been a fair statement. But she couldn’t exactly talk about shiny handprints.

 

“Well, anyway, so after a few days I  _ did _ tell him that the feelings faded, but they hadn’t. Because I was scared, and didn’t know how long I’d be here. And then we spent more time together as friends over the past few months, but I was still scared. Still  _ am  _ scared,” she paused, and Maria looked at her expectantly. Maria always knows when there is more coming.

 

“And then we slept together, and I told him essentially that I liked having friends with benefits more than relationships,” she finished, cringing.

 

“Liz! You slept with a man you know loves you-- for fun-- and are what… now upset that it blew up in your face?” Maria said, but not unkindly.

 

Liz groaned and rested her head back on the bar.

 

She looked up at Maria, resting her chin on her forearms.

 

“I know. I know. I don’t apologize for having a little consensual fun, and he knew what I was asking for. But still, maybe I shouldn’t have. Because now.... Now what it comes down to is that he doesn’t trust me. He said basically that he needs to sort out his life, and it’s better if we don’t spend time together anymore,” she says.

 

“Oh, honey. That’s awful,” Maria says, sympathetically. 

 

“You two are so stubborn, but in such very different ways,” she muses.

 

She refills Liz’s drink and Maria gets the adorably thoughtful expression that she often has on her face.

 

“So, he doesn’t trust you. But I  _ know _ that he still loves you. It’s been ten years and apparently he can’t move on. That doesn’t fade because of a night he has mixed feelings about. What are you going to do to win him over?” she asks, smiling brightly.

 

“I love your optimism, Maria. I always have,” Liz sighs, but doesn’t answer the question, pondering.

 

“Well, think about it. Maybe I’ll have to have some event that throws you two back together and you can profess your undying love for him,” she says. “But, only if that’s what you  _ really _ want, Liz. Think about it. I’m not trying to be harsh, but don’t toy with him. Decide for real, this time.”

 

Liz looks at Maria intently.

 

“I think this time, I want to be ready. I really do,” she says. “I ran away from this town. I left my dad here. I’ve accomplished so many of my goals, and I’m ready to stick around this time.”

 

Maria smiles brightly again.

 

“Well, I for one am so glad to have you back,” she says, walking around the bar and giving Liz a side hug as she sits on the stool. “He will be too. Just show him you aren’t leaving again.”

 

Liz leans her head against Maria.

 

“You are the best. And you are right. I hope I didn’t hurt him too much this time,” she says. “I even tried bringing over fries and milkshakes yesterday again. Feeding people is my super power.”

 

“Ah, classic Liz and Rosa move. Show love through food, not words,” Maria laughs. “It’s not your milkshake he’s after, hon.”

 

“Maria! I wish I could just sleep with him and fix it. That’s the part I’m good at!” Liz giggles.

 

“Quit selling yourself short. You deserve all of it. Believe it more, and maybe that would help?” Maria nudges.


	10. Chapter 10

“Are we ready?” Mara asks, the group in their usual places in Max’s living room.

Michael wastes no time with his question to her..

“How far away is Antar?” he blurts out.

Mara gives him a disbelieving look.

“Far enough away that we had to go into stasis pods in order not to age on the journey,” she said dismissively.

“So we could get back in our pods then?” he pushes.

She sighs.

“Michael, I cannot say that we made the right choice in leaving Antar. I can’t say that we made all the right choices leading up to it. But we left on purpose, and we meant to get far, far away, at least for a long while. The universe is a vast place, and we were going into hiding as much as running. Those that felt like Nukhu did would kill you if they had one inkling who you were, whether they made it back or they found you here. If the rest of the Alighting never came for us, they either all died or do not know what has become of us. You have pods that seem to have erased your memories, half a ship, and no knowledge of the ruthlessness of the people we left. All you know is here… Why do you want to return so badly, when you were not captured like the rest of us?” she asks genuinely.

“Because all I know is here. And all I know is that humans won’t accept us. Never. You should know that more than anyone,” he said.

“Blend in, my child. Assimilate. Hide. From your past, our people, and those on earth. Find something you love and be content. You won’t find the peace you seek on Antar. You must try to find it here,” she says.

“How can you say that? After decades in that prison?” Michael says, his ever-burning passion on full display.

“I wish I could tell you want you want, my dear. I do,” she says.

Max had been sitting quietly, listening, absorbing.

“You can never go home again, Michael. It’s a theme of how many books? Over and over, throughout earth’s history. And apparently, Antars’ history, too,” he said with a surprising tenderness. For once, he isn’t try to argue with Michael, and isn’t resentful of their differences.

Michael gets up and paces.

“I’m sorry Michael, I am.” 

The two lock eyes for just a moment, and Michael’s pacing slows. 

“Next?” Mara asks, looking to Isabel.

“I want to know...if there is more you aren’t telling us,” Max says before Isabel can answer.

“When I visited a supposed healer looking for answers about this symbol we all seem to know, her grandmother said one of us lived in her community on their tribal lands𑁋 a woman that could heal with her hands. She said the day this woman died she said, ‘He has arrived, so I may leave’,” Max explained.

“What does that mean?” he demanded. “Who was that person? Why wouldn’t they have come for us in the pods?”

Mara looks thoughtful. 

“I...I don’t know. They could have been on our ship. I know that even among us that left Antar there were… differing ideas of what to do. Another thing I don’t understand is why you all have no memories, but perhaps you were in the pods too long. It’s as if you woke at a certain time. Sometimes I fear our council was riddled with more secrets than even I know, and I served on it for an Antarian century. There was always talk still of colonizing this planet, what with history and how it sustains life similar to ours. But those of us with sense always pointed out how readily the population here climbed, how many there were and how much damage they do. Humans,” she said, the last word as if it tasted bad.

“Quantity over quality, I suppose.”

Isabel was over this part of the conversation.

“You said we can’t go back. You said we have no future, and to be happy here. So… my question is, can I have a baby with a human?”

“Why would you want to, my dear?” Mara asked, as if that answered the question.

Isabel looked intently at her, not backing down.

“I’m not perpetuating the species with these two, if that’s what you had in mind. So, what do you think?”

“It should be possibly. There was speculation we share a common ancestor that came up in our debates, what with the stories of how often we traveled here, and how similar we look. But I would be very, very careful. And think through it. How could a human ever understand if their child exhibits powers greater than them, like we have?” Mara said.

Mara closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath.

“Children, I have overstayed. I cannot hold on any longer. I have been pushing death away for days now.”

“What?” Michael moves to sit down next to her again.

“You can’t leave us. We just found you,” he said, uncharacteristically vulnerable.

She reaches up to touch his face, bringing him into her mind. He doesn’t see a specific scene this time, but rather feels her, much like when she was still in the prison.

“It is simply time. If I could have found you before, I would have.”

They sit like that, her hand on his face, his arm now around her slight shoulders, until her hand drops and Michael feels the full weight of her fall into the couch. He cries, silently, cradling her body against him now.

Max looks shell-shocked, witnessing something so intimate, sitting on his couch and watching Michael’s only real family leave him, whether she wanted to or not, yet again.

Isabel speaks first, after the silence stretches on for what seems like hours.

“We need to hold a funeral, Michael. We’ll do it all. You just come,” she decides.

Michael looks at her, impossibly lost, trying to process his mother’s words and now Isabel’s.

“At the cave, near the pods?” he asks.

“Okay,” Isabel nods slowly. They are making this all up as they go along. 

“Invite everyone that knows,” Michael blurts out.

Isabel and Max exchange confused looks.

“She deserves something,” he explains. “It’s not like we know what Antarians do. Our past is lost to us, she even said so. So invite everyone that knows who we are, and let’s do it the only way we can. Let’s give her something.”

They all look at each other in silent agreement.

Max finds the nicest sheet he has to serve a burial shroud, and tells Isabel and Michael to go to the caves and prepare the place. 

“I’ll bring her body over after I ask everyone to meet us there.”

Michael gently lays his mother across the couch, and follows Isabel out the door, still reeling.

Max wraps Mara’s body up as respectfully as he can, and then goes out on his patio to begin making phone calls.

His finger hovers over Liz’s name.

He had just told her the day before to give him space, but for Michael, he knew that he would set aside his feelings one more time.

He groans, knowing a text won’t do.

Liz picks up on the second ring.

“Hey, uh, Liz… I’ve got to explain some things to you, and ask if you could be here for something tonight. And I’m hoping you can explain to Alex and Kyle, too,” he began.

“I am... Listening,” she says, confused.

Max tells her about the prison, and what they’d found, noting that Alex and Kyle know about that part. He tells her that Michael has just lost and found his mother, and that they are trying to do the right thing by holding a funeral at the caves.

“How soon can you have them there?” he asks.

Liz is in high gear. 

“Give me an hour, maybe two,” she answered. “I’ll see you there.”

____________________________________________________________________________

 

The somber group gathers in the cave, Mara’s body artfully tied in the makeshift shroud, lying peacefully near the pods. It’s an odd experience, for sure, burying someone. But what else are they to do? There is no guidebook for their lives.

Michael and Isabel dug a second grave, before everyone arrived, this time just behind the pods; a grave to be remembered and honored, and not hidden away in the back of the cave.

Max, Michael and Isabel stand closest, with Liz, Kyle and Alex behind them. More than one person wishes Maria could know the truth, Michael always feeling exposed and vulnerable around Alex, and now even more so.

Michael speaks first.

“We don’t know why we are here, except for the few answers you gave us. We don’t know what to do with you, or how we are supposed to say goodbye. This cave is the only thing we have that binds us together, now. So I hope you can rest here.”

Without needing to speak about it, the three focus their energy together and Mara’s body is slowly and gracefully lifted into the ground. They continue to use their powers to fill the ground back over her.

Liz walks forward quietly and hands them each a few flowers she decided to bring with her.

Everyone shuffles around until they are facing each other, in a circle around the grave.

Max clears his throat.

“You said we have no home to go back to, and that we have to be happy here. It’s what I always wanted, but I don’t think I actually know how to do it, despite pretending I didn’t care about where we came from. But Michael is wrong. These pods aren’t the only thing that tie us together. And neither is all of our pain. I love them. I love Isabel, and I love Michael, and I’m not leaving them. I don’t care what they want,” he laughs, and then stops speaking because if he says more he will cry. “But I sure do hope nobody ever finds this cave.”

He steps forward and drops his flowers on the grave, and then Michael and Isabel follow suit.

“I guess this is it then. This is the family we somehow have,” Isabel looks up at the humans. “Don’t even think about screwing us over.” 

She gives the group the tightest of smiles, which may as well be tacit acceptance when it comes to Isabel.

They seem to know there isn’t much for them to say, so they sit silently witnessing the range of comments.

Isabel hugs her brothers, and leaves first, preferring to keep the rest of her reflections to herself, not really knowing how to voice them.

Michael turns to Max, and Max drops his head. 

“We don’t need to talk about it, man,” he mutters.

But before he can say anything more, Michael has pulled him into the first real hug they’ve shared in a decade, or maybe ever. After a moment, they step away from each other awkwardly.

“I’m sad, okay? But maybe for the first time, I’m healing, too. I didn’t want to find her and lose her, but maybe finding her is still what I needed. Maybe I needed to see her and know they didn’t abandon us here on purpose. Maybe that’s what I was always really afraid of,” Michael says quietly, looking down. Maybe I wasn’t afraid of humans rejecting us, maybe I was afraid our own people did.”

Max claps him on the shoulder.

“So, what now, then? You want to come back to my place?”

“I think I need to… go back home and process this. Maybe in a day or so,” Michael said. He looks up to see Alex looking intently at him, but he’s not ready to talk about the last few days with him either.  
Max breaks the tension.

“Thanks for coming, everybody. We know this… is weird to say the least. We didn’t know what else to do,” he said.

Kyle just nods, and Alex steps forward and hugs them both.

“Maybe I will see you around, Michael. Liz, we’ll wait in the car,” Alex said, sensing Liz might want a moment. Kyle and Alex had to drive with her, since she knew the way to the cave. Kyle just looks between Max and Liz, and follows everyone else outside.

Liz doesn’t care that Max told her to stay away, at least not in this moment.

She closes the space between them quickly, and embraces Max fully, whispering how sorry she is into his shoulder. He hugs her back weakly.

She pulls back to look up at him.

“I didn’t know everything you had going on, Max, when I showed up at your house. I𑁋 I didn’t mean to be so selfish. I’m sorry, and I understand now. And I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never really wanted to, and now my reasons don’t seem all that great, but I’m sorry.”

Max doesn’t really know what to say, so Liz continues.

“And I… I know that this was different, okay? You can tell me if you need anything, but I don’t bother you. I won’t interfere anymore.”

“Can you come over? Later? Just you,” Max blurts out. His pull to her is relentless, and he can’t help but forgive her the instant she says she’s sorry, but it’s because he knows she means it. He knows she doesn’t use her words lightly, once she finally decides to use them.

“I’d love to,” she smiles. “If you’ll have me.”

“Okay then. Yeah. I’ve gotta take Michael home first.”

“I’ll see you there.”

The two walk out of the cave, ever so hopeful despite the somberness of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of what resonates about this version of Roswell is the timeliness of bringing up in no uncertain terms the conflicts and ugly side of humanity that come forth when people need to leave their home, and the trauma it can leave behind. Making it so that our three don't get all the answers isn't entirely b/c I don't know where the show will go, but because it's realistic. Kids of immigrants to any nation, particularly when their parents left circumstances beyond their control to survive, don't always get answers, and are rightfully from more than one place (and should get to embrace that) and parents have their reasons that they don't always share b/c its *painful* to leave your home country behind and feel you have no choice. I think this is what I was reflecting on with this chapter.


	11. Chapter 11

Liz pulls up to Max’s house feeling nervous. It’s not a feeling she’s accustomed to when it comes to men, or dating, or whatever is going on between them. She didn’t bring food over this time, which almost feels like a first. She’s ready to actually talk and not just use nice gestures to advance whatever relationship they have. 

 

Also, Max had texted her _ not  _ to bring anything.

 

She knocks on the door and Max opens it, tall and stoic. She wonders how on earth he can be pulling himself together after everything.

 

“Thanks for coming,” he said. He might be slightly nervous as well.  

 

They walk through to the kitchen.

 

“It smells amazing in here,” she said. “You know you didn’t need to cook with everything going on.”

 

“I needed to do something normal. I can’t just stop living,” he replied.

 

She hums in acknowledgement.

 

“Maybe I should have been better at that,” she said.

 

Instead of responding, he pours her a glass of wine and she leans against the counter, just observing him as he finishes cooking.

 

They move to the table and chat easily during dinner, able to set aside the tension of their relationship at least for a few minutes.

 

“Do you ever wonder why you can eat people food?” she asked lightly, then makes a face at her own wording. “Human food? Earth food?”

 

“We stopped asking those questions a long time ago,” he laughed.

 

He clears his throat.

“So…. I don’t think I have the mental energy tonight to tell you everything that Michael’s mom told us, but apparently our kind have been visiting earth for years. As in, millenia, maybe? It’s been lost to history, apparently, but we might have had a common ancestor.”

 

Liz looks at him with an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression, tilting her head upwards.

 

“Well, we do look the same. Eat the same. Sleep the same. Have sex the same way,” she said, ticking things off on her fingers.

 

Max chokes on his laugh.  

 

“Yeah, all those things the same.”

 

“Maybe I could work on my powers, then. Maybe… they lie latent and I just don’t know how to use them.”

 

She pauses again, for effect.

 

“Maybe….. I could figure out how to use the Force,” she finishes, raising one hand with a flourish.

 

They laugh and continue to banter while they clean up and end up settling in on the couch.

 

Liz curls one leg under her and turns toward Max.

 

“I’m really glad you invited me over, Max. I’ve thought about it, and you had every reason to tell me to go. But… I want you to know that I’ve  _ really _ decided to stay in Roswell,” she said.

 

“You’re not going to try to transfer somewhere else to do more research, or get another fellowship, or something?” he asks, leaning back into the couch and spreading his long legs out.

 

“I’ve been away long enough. I ran away instead of dealing with Rosa’s death, and I left my dad all alone, and I left you, and I… I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished in my life, but it’s about time I grew up-- and set down some roots, maybe?”

 

“You’re a little hard on yourself, don’t you think?” he said, glancing at her.

 

“Maybe. But maybe not. I’m not sure I would do everything the same way I did if I knew at any point in the past ten years what I know now. I used you, and I hurt you.”

 

She pulls her other leg underneath her so that she sits sideways on the couch, fully facing him.

 

Max looks thoughtful for a moment before responding.

 

“I deserved everything that’s happened anyway, didn’t I? I can’t imagine you finding out the truth in any other way than you did. We were all so young...  _ So  _ young. The deaths left everybody reeling, maybe just in a different way. I wonder if you’d found out who I was at any other point, if we could even be here, right now, sitting together on this couch.”

 

Liz takes a drink of her refilled wine glass.

 

“I don’t think you’ve deserved any of this, no. Not at all. Maybe I didn’t know who killed Rosa after I saw the silver handprint on the picture, but you didn’t know it was Noah, either.”

 

“Well, I thought it was my sister,” he said forlornly.

 

Liz sighs.

 

“I told you I’ve forgiven you. I wanted to find out the truth, and eventually you told me. And I’m… glad that I know, but I get why it was a secret. And I’m glad that I understand the bind you were in.”

 

She sets down her glass, and leans forward and puts her hand over his heart. 

 

“And I’m glad that I know who you are, inside, truly.”

 

He reaches up and grabs the hand that sits on his chest, holding her there for a minute while they just take each other in, his head turned toward her.

 

“Max, do you forgive me? Do you forgive yourself? Because I’ve made a decision about staying, and a decision that I want to be in your life, and I don’t want you to be afraid I’m going to leave at any moment, but my biggest fear is that there is too much baggage between us and we’ll get weighed down by it.”

 

Max leans back into the couch heavily, looking at the ceiling, and her hand falls away.

 

“You want to be in my life how?” 

 

“In however you want me to be.”

 

“That’s not a good answer, Liz. You know what I’ve wanted for a while now.”

 

“Fine. I want  _ you _ . I want to be your girlfriend? What am I supposed to say here?” she laughs.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

Liz sighs.

 

“I understand why you are asking me, but I’ve finally caught up to you,” she starts, but stops.

 

“--- no, wait that’s not right either. I’ve always felt the same way as you Max. Always. I just denied it, I denied the feeling of it, because I was scared and trying to figure stuff out, and I didn’t know if I could trust you. But that’s all changed now, and I’m ready to not deny it anymore.”

 

Max gives her with a soft smile.

 

“Well, that’s not quite what I meant, but you’ve never said you’d always had feelings for me, so that’s nice to know,” he laughs quietly. “You said your feelings faded.”

 

“Well… I told you that I lied about that when you were sleeping. So, um, I lied about that,” she said. She leans forward and drinks down the last of her second glass of wine. When she sits back into the couch they face each other, both with one leg bent, mirroring each other as their knees touch.

 

Max take her hand again.

 

“What I meant was… are you sure you want to be with me with all that it entails? I can’t have a normal life, Liz, even though I’m trying to. I come with Michael and Isabel and that’s not going to change. We can’t fall out the way normal families can. We’ll always be near each other, and I don’t  _ think _ any of us will leave Roswell for good-- just in case there is something, or someone, else here to find. So, I’m not questioning your feelings anymore. I’m asking if you’ve thought it through what it means to want to be with someone like me. Because you’ve been in danger more than once because of me. You’ve lost your---”

 

“I know what happened, Max. But that’s why I asked if you’ve forgiven yourself yet, because Noah caused all that. Not you.”

 

“And what if there is another Noah out there? Or something worse?”

 

“And what if I get in an accident? Get a disease? I’m supposed to be the one that worries about ‘what ifs’ Max, and I’m ready. What if nothing else ever happens to you because of where you’re from and we live our whole lives pining and worrying about love lost and all that instead of being happy?”

 

“Pining, huh? You’re gonna pine for me?” Max teases.

 

Liz rolls her eyes but replies.

 

“I already have been. I just… show it in weird ways.”

 

She meets his gaze, and knows they are finally on the precipice. She wants to put it all out there.

 

“Me asking you to have casual sex with me might have been my way of pining for you, okay?”

 

Max raises his eyebrows.

 

“You  _ really _ wanted to be with me back then?”

 

Liz groans and throws her head back dramatically.

 

“It’s going to take me forever to convince you now. I  _ wanted  _ to be with you since high school, at least in part. I  _ definitely _ wanted to be with you in that hotel room. I mean, haven’t we already covered this? Is the talking part over now?” 

 

She makes a face.

 

They have continued to draw closer together while they talked, and there are only a few inches left to cross.

 

“Please, just let me kiss you, and let’s just be together, and let’s just figure out the rest later,” she breathes.

 

“That’s all I ever wanted to do, Liz.”

 

And finally, all the walls have crumbled.

 

They close the space between them at the same time, meeting to kiss like they should have done all along.

 

It doesn’t take long to escalate, and Liz swings her leg around to straddle Max, and push him back into the couch.  She tries to get as close to him as possible while they kiss, grinding into him without really thinking about it.

 

She pulls away to catch her breath and their foreheads touch.

 

“Please don’t tell me you want to take it slow,” he jokes.

 

“No, I want to go to the bedroom. Or stay here. You choose. You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” she whispers. “Anything you want.”

 

Max pulls back and considers her for a moment. There are a lot of things he wants to say, but instead he just kisses her again.

 

“Bedroom,” he says, after a few more moments.

 

“Ugh, ok. Bedroom. I guess I have to stop doing this then,” she says, swiveling her hips into his a few more times before pulling herself away.

 

She hops up and takes off her shirt before practically skipping into his room, him close on her heels.

 

He catches up to her and grabs her from behind, reaching down to help take off her jeans, and slipping his hand inside.

 

She leans back into him, giving him a chance to suck and kiss at her neck, and of course he does just that.

 

She reaches her hand up and back, running her fingers through his hair, and pulls away from him to crawl on the bed, pulling the rest of her clothes off.

 

He stops and stares at her, lying naked on his bed.

 

“Uh. This is not fair. Take off your clothes and come on,” she says.

 

She isn’t one to get terribly self-conscious, but the depth of his gaze has a way of making her feel powerful and vulnerable all at once.

 

He strips slowly, continuing to take her in, and crawls over her, finally.

 

She wiggles her hips up into him, trying to draw him into her.

 

“You are so impatient, aren’t you?” he observes, keeping his body just far enough away to keep her squirming.

 

She reaches down and grabs him, stroking him and trying to bring him closer.

 

He reaches for her wrists, pulling them away from him and holding her hands over her head.  He holds them both there with one hand while the other runs down her body to explore.

 

“Max...” she whines.

 

He massages one of her breasts with his free hand and licks and sucks on the other. Liz continues to try to rub her thighs together underneath him, but she is pinned down by his hips.  How he is managing not to thrust against her, she’ll never understand, because she is about to explode.

 

He continues his leisurely exploration of her body with his mouth, moving further down once, and then back up to her breasts again. He gently bites and pulls at one of her nipples.

 

“Well, I guess now I know you like those,” she breathes.

 

He moves down again, finally letting go of her hands. When he reaches between her thighs, she runs her hands through his hair now that they are free, deciding it might be her favorite thing to do while he insists on teasing her so much.

 

He goes straight to her clit, pulling her skin gently to spread her open and flicking his tongue over her clit rapidly. When she seems like she can’t stand it any longer, he stops and sucks on her until she comes.

 

She is breathing hard, and props herself up on her elbows, looking at him with glazed eyes.

 

“Are you gonna fuck me yet, Max? Jesus.”

 

He looks at her hungrily, and is on top of her and inside her before she can feign impatience again.

 

He groans, having waited long enough and starts thrusting almost immediately and she pushes back each time instinctively.

 

“Finally, God. I’ve been wanting to be with you again for so long, Max,” she whimpers.

 

They continue on, meeting each other without abandon, until he’s finally getting close.  

 

“Come on Max, it’s fine,” she can barely get out before he moans into her and comes, grabbing her hips in his hands and pushing in as far as he can get to ride out his orgasm.

 

He collapses on top of her and she strokes his back, feeling more content than she thought was possible in her life.

 

He rolls to his side and brings her with him, so they lie facing each other.  Suddenly they are kissing again, but now languidly, just enjoying being happy in each other’s presence.

 

“We’re gonna figure it all out, Max. Together,” she whispers.

 

He kisses her in response, and that’s all either of them need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! My take on how the first season could resolve some of those little issues and how they could end up together while we wait to see what actually happens! I enjoyed writing it, and I hope it was worth the wait!


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